shinaton 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

ALBERT    SHELBY  LEV IN 0 


THE  WAR- WHIRL 
IN  WASHINGTON 


I  decided  that  the  room  had  been  used  as  a  bar 


THE  WAR-WHIRL 
IN  WASHINGTON 


BY 


FRANK  WARD  O'MALLEY 

OF  THE  NEW  YORK  SUN 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 

BY  TONY  SARG 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1918 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
THE  CENTUBY  Co. 


Published,  May,  1918 


3r 

s^ 

I 


TO 

THE  LADY  WHO  DOUBTLESS  HAS  BEEN 
SOMEWHAT  MISQUOTED  HEREIN. 

MY  WIFE 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     KNOCK! — AND    IT    SHALL    BE    OPENED, 

MAYBE 3 

II     ROOMS,  RUM  AND  RUCTIONS     ....  34 

III  WATER,  WATER  EVERYWHERE,  BUT  NOT 

A  SINGLE  DRINK        63 

IV  " ALL 's  RIOTOUS  ALONG  THE  POTOMAC!"  96 
V    THE  TOWN  WITH  THE  TROLLEY  OFF     .  117 

VI     THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 128 

VII     SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT         167 

VIII     ALL  BOUND  ROUND  WITH  A  RED  WOOL 

STRING 199 

IX     THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE     .      .  230 

X    THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB  265 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

I  decided  that  the  room  had  been  used  as  a  bar     Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

And  I  was  off  toward  the  little  flowershop  before  the 

wife  had  scarcely  begun  her  faint  protests       ...  16 

I  took  him  behind  a  pillar  and  gave  him  a  tip       ...  33 

Laughed  heartily  when  asked  for  a  room  and  bath       .  37 

Thence  behind  a  furnace   .  .  . ,  and  so,  ever  onward     .      .  44 
And    the    coal    magnate    climbed    into    the    only    vacant 

barber-chair 49 

So  I  firmly  resolved,  before  I  lost  consciousness       .      .  64 

From  every  waistcoat  pocket  were  countless  fountain  pens  88 
"Sir,  I  kinnot  get  you  that  numbah,  being  as  the  line  is 

busy" 113 

These  are  the  happy  days  for  the  City  of  Gossip       .      .  128 
The  whole  house  had  nothing  on  me  for  oratorical  fire- 
works        161 

"Oh,  in  one  of  our  Indian  wars  out  West,"  finally  he  ad- 
mitted       176 

And  then  there  is  the  other  kind  of  "inventor"     .      .      .  225 
"Second  door  to  your  left,"  directed  the  young  man  with 

a  thumb  jerk 240 

The  extreme  emptiness  of  that  little  black  bag     .      .      .  273 
And  the  extravagance  of  her  language  left  me  crumpled 

in  my  chair 288 


THE  WAR-WHIRL 
IN  WASHINGTON 


THE  WAR-WHIRL 
IN  WASHINGTON 

CHAPTER  I 
KNOCK! — AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED,   MAYBE 

RIBS  torn  free  from  the  Granite  State  and 
chiseled  into  fairy-like,  but  everlasting, 
lace :  clay-beds  molded  and  baked  to  softest  tones 
of  saffron  and  magenta,  and  piled  high,  brick  on 
brick,  that  sleepy  old  homes  may  nestle  under 
the  tree-arches  of  sunflecked  streets,  oldish  man- 
sions in  a  newish  land,  their  walls  seamed  and 
softened  to  a  gentle  loveliness  as  beautiful  as 
your  old  granny's  wrinkled  face;  and  effigies  of 
the  brave,  astride  bronze  chargers  that  rear  from 
pedestals  of  granite  as  solid  as  the  hills  and  the 
hearts  of  the  wonder  city  itself;  boulevards 
stretching  fanwise  from  the  glorious  dome,  like 
finger-tips  that  would  reach  over  the  hills  and 

3 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

far  away  to  caress  even  the  littlest  of  humble 
hamlets  —  east  and  north,  south  and  west,  tow- 
ers and  domes,  fringes  of  columned  marbles, 
leafy  slopes,  and  spires  and  minarets ;  and  twin- 
ing and  wreathing,  wreathing  and  twining  it  all 
about,  the  ribbon  river  of  silver  slipping  ever  be- 
tween the  Virginia  and  the  Maryland  hills,  si- 
lently slipping  down  to  the  Southland  sea. 

In  fact,  some  burg  is  Washington,  some  burg. 
I  'm  in  the  wool-sponging  business  in  lower 
Broadway,  New  York,  and  I  don't  know  much 
about  writing  or  art  except  that  I  know  what  I 
like;  and  so  I  can't  put  all  I  think  about  Wash- 
ington into  words.  I  and  the  wife  just  attend 
strictly  to  our  own  business,  I  to  the  wool-spong- 
ing part  and  she  to  affairs  around  the  flat. 
When  it  comes,  therefore,  to  putting  all  I  think 
about  Washington  into  even  a  long  paragraph, 
the  best  I  can  turn  out  is  to  group  a  lot  of  the 
fanciest  things  in  the  town,  and  then  separate 
the  items  with  periods,  which  is  one  trick  I 
learned  by  reading  only  the  best  modern  maga- 
zine stuff  and  books. 

In  fact,  it  takes  a  poet  to  sum  up  all  that 
Washington  is,  or  all  that  the  lovely  old  city 
ever  will  be,  and  then  sing  the  very  soul  of  the 


KNOCK!  — AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

country's  capital  in  three  short  lines  of  simple 
native  patois: 

Firs'  'n  war! 

Firs'  'n  peace! 

'N'  las'   'n  the  Amurican  League! 

"  And  we  're  going  down  and  take  the  old  burg 
in  before  the  year  is  out,  all  the  way  from  the 
kaiser's  statue  of  Friederick  der  Gross  at  the 
War  College  up  to,  and  including  Joe  Daniels." 
Thus  I  to  the  wife  across  the  breakfast  scrapple 
one  chill  morning  in  the  autumn.  "  I  want  to 
see  Washington  at  war.  Next  spring  —  what? 
—  me  for  Washington,  then,  when  the  tulips  are 
out.  That 's  the  time  to  take  it  in :  all  the  Vir- 
ginia hills  a  misty  green,  and  the  crocuses  blaz- 
ing in  the  circles  all  over  town,  and  the  generals 
and  admirals  and  everything  wearing  their  white 
uniforms,  and  the  whole  shebang  all  lit  up  with 
sunlight  —  just  like  that  time  of  the  year  Henry 
Van  Dyke  wrote  about  in  the  piece  he  got  printed 
where  he  says,  '  And  fountains  leap  in  Madison 
Square,'  or  something  like  that.  That  would  be 
a  bad  little  trip,  what?  Answer  yes  or  no." 

"  No,"  answered  the  wife.  She  held  up  a  hand 
for  silence.  "  In  the  first  place,"  she  began, 

5 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

"  Washington  is  a  southern  city.  Now,  what  *s 
the  sense  in  staying  up  here  in  the  cold  and 
snow,  so  long  as  we  're  going  to  make  the  trip  at 
all,  when  we  could  be  going  south  to  Washing- 
ton during  our  cold  months?  I  want  to  see 
Washington  at  war,  too,  but  I  want  to  see  it  in 
the  balmy  winter-time." 

"  Oh,  balmy  my  eye !  Why,  I  've  seen  blizzards 
busting  along  Pennsylvania  Avenue  in  the  win- 
ter months  that  — " 

But  there  was  no  use  shooting  an  unanswer- 
able argument  toward  an  empty  breakfast-room 
chair.  I  quit.  Again  the  next  morning,  and 
the  next  and  next,  next,  next,  we  discussed  the 
time  of  going.  Autumn  merged  into  an  early 
winter  of  peculiar  cussedness,  and  the  wife  was 
still  wrapped  up  in  that  state  of  just  plain  stub- 
bornness which  causes  every  reasonable  man  to 
marvel  more  and  more  at  the  unreasonable,  so- 
called  mind  workings  of  woman  the  longer  man 
studies  her  "  mental  "  processes.  December  was 
waning,  and  still  the  wife  was  stubborn,  and  I 
had  very  good  reasons,  which  I  explained  to  her 
almost  daily  in  detail,  for  not  giving  in  to  her 
tantrums. 

"  In  the  springtime,  that 's  when  we  're  going 
6 


KNOCK!  — AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

to  Washington,"  I  was  telling  her  for  the  thou- 
sandth time  when  we  sat  down,  one  day  during 
the  Christmas  holidays,  for  the  regular  breakfast 
argument.  "  We  're  going  when  all  the  Vir- 
ginia hills  are  a  misty  green,  and  everything  is 
like  what  Doc  Van  Dyke  wrote  about  the  foun- 
tains leaping  in  Madison  Square,  and  — " 

"  Oh,  shut  up,  you  and  your  Doc  Van  Dyke 
leaping  in  Madison  Square,"  broke  in  the  wife, 
taking  her  coffee  into  her  dressing-room,  her 
stubbornness  having  at  last  goaded  her  to  using 
extreme  language.  "  We  're  going  to  Washing- 
ton in — " 

"  The  springtime !  "  I  shouted  before  she  could 
slam  her  door.  I  had  thought  the  matter  out 
calmly  and  reasonably.  I  knew  where  I  stood 
on  the  subject,  and  my  mind  was  made  up  to 
stand  there. 

It  was  a  bright,  sunny  day  in  the  first  week 
in  January  when  the  last  of  our  luggage  had 
been  piled  on  top  of  the  waiting  taxicab,  and  we, 
the  wife  and  I,  at  last  were  headed  toward  the 
New  York  end  of  a  Washington-bound  train. 
Our  intention  was  to  take  a  train  leaving  late  in 
the  forenoon,  but  we  were  delayed  in  getting 

7 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

away  from  the  flat  because  the  record  zero 
weather,  which  in  that  particular  week  was  grip- 
ping the  Atlantic  seaboard  from  the  Carolinas 
to  Canada,  had  frozen  the  radiator  or  something 
of  the  taxicab  in  front  of  our  flat.  Conse- 
quently we  missed  our  train.  It  was  just  as 
well,  perhaps,  inasmuch  as  the  railroad  company 
had  taken  that  particular  Washington  train  off, 
so  we  learned  later,  in  order  to  help  win  the  war. 
Besides,  the  taxicab's  differential,  if  that 's  wrhat 
one  calls  it,  also  had  got  frost-bitten  during  an 
extra  last  minute  argument,  which  arose  in  our 
elevator  on  our  way  down  to  the  taxicab. 

There  would  n't  have  been  any  argument  if  it 
were  not  that  I  had  remembered  suddenly  in  the 
elevator  that  Washington  had  gone  dry  on  the 
previous  November  1.  This  thought  came  to  me 
as  we  were  shooting  downward  past  the  fourth 
floor;  whereupon  I  suggested  to  the  wife  on  the 
instant  that  I  hurry  back  to  the  buffet  in  our 
dining-room  with  my  little  old  black-leather 
traveling-bag,  open  the  top  of  the  bag  and  the 
bottom  of  the  buffet,  stock  up  quickly,  and  hurry 
right  down  again  and  join  the  wife  in  the  taxi- 
cab.  The  whole  process  would  have  taken  about 
three,  maybe  four,  minutes.  It  took  the  wife  at 

8 


KNOCK!  — AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

least  a  minute  in  the  elevator,  five  minutes  in 
the  apartment-house  lobby,  and  at  least  three 
minutes  more  outside  in  three  degrees  below 
zero  to  ding-dong  it  into  me  that  if  I  ran  up  to 
our  dining-room  buffet  again  for  one  minute, 
we ' d  miss  the  train.  And  from  the  general 
trend  of  the  peroration  which  she  delivered  out 
at  the  curb,  the  blue-nose  bandit  shivering  at 
the  tiller  of  the  taxicab  doubtless  got  the  notion 
that  my  chief  nourishment,  .day  and  night,  was 
hard  liquor,  whereas  my  sole  reason  for  going 
back  to  the  buffet  was  the  sudden  realization 
that,  with  every  bar  and  cafe"  in  Washington 
closed  by  the  Government  and  the  keys  thrown 
away,  there  would  be  no  place  to  turn  to  in  case 
the  wife  got  a  chill.  Leave  it  to  a  woman  to 
twist  a  plea  for  reasonable  medicinal  precau- 
tions into  the  ravings  of  a  dipsomaniac  just  to 
win  her  battle.  As  a  matter  of  record,  it  is  only 
fair  to  myself  to  say  here  that  I  can  take  a  drink 
or  leave  it  alone  whenever  I  want  to,  my  choice 
being  merely  to  drink  moderately  each  day. 

"  Oh,  all  right,"  I  snapped  finally,  letting  her 
have  her  own  way  for  once,  and  dismissing  the 
matter  of  necessary  stimulants  for  good  and  all. 
"  I  '11  have  time  at  the  station,  anyway,  to  dash 

9 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

into  the  cafe  there  and  grab  off  a  flask,  just  sup- 
posing you  get  a  chill  or  anything  while  we  're 
away." 

Believe  it  or  not,  once  the  taxicab  buccaneer 
had  thawed  out  his  machinery  sufficiently  to  get 
going,  the  wife  started  right  in,  and  kept  it  up 
till  we  were  at  the  ticket-window,  on  a  line  of 
argument  which  had  to  do  with  the  duty  of  every 
citizen,  especially  in  time  of  war,  to  obey  the 
law  not  only  in  spirit,  but  to  the  letter.  Femi- 
nine mentality  could  not  be  made  to  grasp  that 
one  small  quart,  say,  could  be  carried  to  Wash- 
ington, and  then,  if  we  found  out  after  we  had 
reached  the  capital  that  the  law  said  we  must 
not  even  bring  the  hard  stuff  into  town,  I  could 
give  the  whole  quart  to  the  medical  department 
of  some  deserving  hospital  or  home  for  the  aged 
or  orphan  asylum  or  something,  in  the  District 
of  Columbia.  No,  "  the  law  is  the  law ! "  she 
cried.  "  The  law  is  the  law !  The  law  is  the 
law!"  What  kind  of  argument  is  that?  By 
way  of  relief  I  leaned  wearily  against  the  noise 
of  the  clicking  taximeter,  and  watched  the  dial 
numbers  jump  upward  with  every  jolt. 

We  missed  the  train,  as  I ' ve  said,  and  we 
should  n't  have  been  in  time  for  it,  anyway,  had 

10 


KNOCK!  — AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

we  arrived  on  time,  inasmuch  as  it  had  been 
taken  off  the  schedule  two  days  before.  The  idea 
in  taking  our  train  and  a  lot  of  others  off,  so  it 
was  explained  to  us,  was  the  patriotic  one  that 
if  a  lot  of  passenger-trains,  which  never  make 
much  money,  anyway,  were  discontinued,  the 
company  could  haul  just  so  much  more  Michigan 
furniture  to  Brooklyn  homes,  and  Persian  rugs 
from  the  North  Philadelphia  factories  out  to 
the  Middle-Western  trade,  in  other  words,  could 
expedite  these  and  similar  necessities  and  so 
win  the  war  in  Europe.  The  change  in  train- 
schedules,  however,  was  not  unwelcome;  the  de- 
lay round  the  station  was  reason  enough  for 
me  to  suggest  that  we  go  up  near  the  caf£  end  of 
the  station  and  have  some  luncheon  in  the  res- 
taurant. 

"  No !  The  law  is  the  law !  The  law  is  the 
law !  "  It  was  the  wife  off  on  her  old  singsong 
again.  "  The  Government  has  seen  fit  to  rule 
that  Washington  remain  dry,  and  the  law  is  the 
law ! " 

My  idea  of  entering  the  station  caf£  to  get  a 
flask  of  stimulant,  which  we  might  find  so  nec- 
essary in  case  of  illness  (which,  in  an  extremity, 
might  even  save  our  very  lives),  really  was  a 

11 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

minor  reason  for  my  suggestion  that  we  stroll 
toward  the  crowded,  or  cafe,  end  of  the  restau- 
rant. As  I  said  before,  and  the  wife  knows  it 
well ;  I  can  take  a  drink  or  leave  it  alone  when- 
ever I  want  to.  I  do  object  to  being  placed  in  a 
position  where,  supposing  I  want  to  leave  it 
alone,  I  could  n't  do  so  of  my  own  volition. 

But  five  minutes  before  our  early  afternoon 
train  finally  did  get  away  I  had  a  thought.  I 
suggested  to  the  wife  that  I  run  up  to  the  little 
flower-shop  right  next  to  the  concourse  caf6  and 
get  her  some  violets.  It 's  a  theory  of  mine  that 
little  attentions  such  as  flowers  and  the  like 
should  not  end  with  courtship,  if  the  wonder  of 
early  love-days  is  to  persist  through  wedded  life. 
And  I  was  off  toward  the  little  flower-shop  be- 
fore the  wife  had  scarcely  begun  her  faint  pro- 
tests, opening  my  little  old  traveling-bag  as  I 
raced  toward  the  flower-shop  next  to  the  cafe". 
Then,  while  the  florist  put  the  violet  tinfoil  and 
other  doodads  around  the  posy  corsage,  I  at- 
tended to  some  last  purchases  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood,  and  charged  back  toward  the 
train-gate,  resnapping  the  little  old  black  travel- 
ing-bag on  the  way.  A  redcap  from  Senegambia, 
who  had  been  nursing  our  luggage  up  to  the  time 

12 


KNOCK!  — AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

that  I  had  cut  the  traveling-bag  out  of  the  rest 
of  our  roundup  of  baggage  when  starting  toward 
the  flower-shop  next  to  the  cafe,  again  tried  to 
relieve  me  of  my  little  old  black  traveling-bag  as 
I  rejoined  the  wife.  Amid  the  crush  of  other 
patriots  who  were  wedging  their  way  toward  the 
train,  all  headed  toward  the  capital  to  help  save 
the  nation,  too  —  amid  the  jam  I  drew  the  red- 
cap far  enough  to  one  side  to  whisper  to  him  as 
gently  as  possible  that  if  he  ever  tried  to  get 
that  little  old  black  traveling-bag  out  of  my 
hands  again,  even  for  a  second,  he  would  spend 
the  next  three  days  clasping  a  lily  in  a  darkened 
room  while  being  survived  by  a  widow. 

The  train  which  the  wife  and  I  and  the  black 
bag  finally  boarded  was  known  as  some  kind  of 
"  Express/ '  the  Congressional  Zipper  or  the 
Capital  Catapult  Express  or  some  such  federal 
name.  Once  it  had  consisted  almost  entirely  of 
parlor-cars,  but  that  was  back  in  the  days  be- 
fore all  Serbia  and  Belgium  had  got  together 
like  a  couple  of  big  bullies  and  had  pitched  into 
the  kaiser  until  he  was  goaded  into  taking  up 
arms  to  defend  a  wife  and  seven  children.  Even 
after  America  had  succeeded  in  nagging  Ger- 
many to  the  point  where  the  fatherland  had  to 

13 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

protect  itself  against  our  brutal  and  ruthless 
reaching  out  for  a  port  on  the  North  Sea,  there 
were  still  many  parlor-cars  on  our  particular 
train.  But  with  the  progress  of  the  war,  along 
came  freight  and  passenger  congestion  and  other 
organic  troubles  in  the  railroad's  system,  espe- 
cially in  the  freight-yard  terminals  around  New 
York.  Wherefore  the  railroads  took  almost  all 
the  parlor-cars  off  the  trains  and  stored  them 
along  whatever  little  strips  of  unoccupied  track- 
age still  remained  in  the  terminal  yards,  thus  re- 
lieving the  yard  congestion  and  helping  to  win 
the  war.  It  is  said  that  one  or  two  mighty  rail- 
road men  picked  that  whole  plan  right  out  of 
their  own  heads. 

I  did  n't  complain  about  the  lack  of  parlor- 
cars,  because  I  try  to  be  reasonable  and  patri- 
otic and  everything,  and  I  spend  most  of  my  time 
riding  in  the  smoker  day-coaches,  anyway,  even 
when  I  have  seat  reservations.  But  once  the 
wife  had  compelled  the  parlor-car  ticket  person 
to  say  for  the  eighth  time  that  the  few  chairs 
on  the  train  had  been  sold  out  since  some  weeks 
back  in  1917, —  here  it  was  1918  when  he  was 
telling  us  this  —  the  wife  began  an  agonized 

14 


KNOCK!  — AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

holler  that  must  have  lent  a  lot  of  aid  and  com- 
fort to  the  enemy. 

"  What  proportion  of  the  passengers  going  to 
Washington  on  this  train  prefer  parlor-car  chairs 
to  day-coach  seats?  "  asked  the  wife,  fixing  the 
parlor-car  man  with  the  same  eye  she  levels  at 
our  Amsterdam  Avenue  butcher  while  he 's 
weighing  the  Sunday  roast. 

"Almost  all,  Madam,"  replied  the  ticket  per- 
son, and  some  one  not  too  far  back  in  the  wait- 
ing line  to  be  beyond  earshot  asked  the  world 
in  general  if  women  were  n't  the  limit. 

"  And  how  much  more  track-room  does  a  par- 
lor-car take  up  than  a  day-coach?  "  the  wife  de- 
manded. 

"  None,  Madam." 

"  Then  why  in  time  don't  you  run  all  par  — " 

Rudely  I  had  to  drag  her  away,  protesting. 
And  we  got  a  day-coach  seat  almost  large  enough 
for  her  and  our  hand  luggage  before  it  was  too 
late  to  grab  another  seat  in  the  smoking-car  big 
enough  for  me  and  my  little  old  black  bag. 

This  express  train  was  an  express  because,  so 
we  learned  from  the  schedule,  once  it  had  pulled 
out  of  New  York  around  two  o'clock  in  the  after- 

15 


THE  WAR- WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

noon,  it  made  no  stops  between  New  York  and 
Philadelphia  except  at  Newark.  We  had  been 
told  on  high  authority  that  the  reason  so  many 
trains  had  been  taken  off  the  line  was  the  war- 
time necessity  of  keeping  the  road  wide  open  be- 
tween New  York  and  Washington,  that  stretch 
being  the  most  important  bit  of  railroad  track- 
age, at  this  particular  time,  in  the  world.  And 
so,  with  this  in  mind,  the  railroad  men,  by  work- 
ing snappily  all  around  the  terminal,  got  our 
train  under  way  on  the  wide-open  track  in  less 
than  half  an  hour  after  it  was  scheduled  to  leave. 
By  3 :22  o'clock  I  was  relieved  to  see,  upon  look- 
ing up  from  my  paper,  that  we  were  well  on  our 
way  to  the  capital.  I  remember  the  exact  time, 
because  just  outside  the  smoker- window  was  a 
station  with  a  big  clock,  and  a  station  sign  read- 
ing "  Elizabeth  " ;  and  standing  on  the  platform 
was  one  of  our  own  trainmen  crying  in  tones  of 
finality,  "  Ex-press  turain  to  Phildelfyahbaltee- 
morenworshunton !  This  turain  does  not  stop 
butween  Nooark  and  Norrrrrthphildelfyah ! 
'Board! "  I  remembered  vaguely  having  heard 
the  same  person  say  the  same  thing  about  half  an 
hour  earlier  at  Nooark,  the  trainman  having  had 
no  way  of  knowing  then,  of  course,  that  the  en- 

16 


And  I  was  off  toward  the  little  flowershop  before  the  wife  had 
scarcely  begun   her   faint   protests 


KNOCK!— AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

gineer,  owing  to  the  war,  was  going  to  change 
his  mind  and  stop  at  Elizabeth. 

Somebody  many  years  earlier  had  forgotten  to 
make  the  train-shed  at  Philadelphia  long  enough 
to  hold  a  train  of  day-coaches  of  the  length  of  our 
particular  string  of  cars.  We  had  just  passed 
Trenton,  where  the  express  also  was  brought 
to  a  stop  long  enough  to  take  aboard  two  women 
and  a  crate  containing  a  Chow  dog,  when  news 
that  the  train  was  too  big  for  the  Philadelphia 
train-shed  began  to  permeate  through  our  cars. 
The  conductor  plainly  was  vexed.  Finally  he 
stopped  the  train  on  the  far  side  of  the  Delaware 
Eiver  and  called  the  engineer  out  of  his  cab  so 
they  could  talk  the  matter  over  along  the  road- 
side. The  afternoon  was  waning,  and  we  were 
fretting  to  get  on ;  so  I  suggested  from  the  plat- 
form that  the  train,  provided  it  kept  to  the  pace 
it  had  set  for  itself  since  2  o'clock,  could  tempo- 
rarily be  run  by  the  fireman,  thus  permitting  the 
engineer  and  conductor  to  walk  along  beside  it 
while  settling  the  knotty  Philadelphia  problem. 
The  best  I  got  from  the  engineer  for  my  sugges- 
tion was  a  request  to  mind  my  own  darn  busi- 
ness. 

"So  you're  running  the  railroads,  too?"  the 
17 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

conductor  asked  me,  I  thought  a  bit  sarcastically. 
"  Well,  go  "to  it,  old  top,"  he  added ;  "  we  might 
as  well  make  it  unanimous." 

I  left  them  to  wrestle  with  the  problem  with- 
out my  help.  They  could  n't  master  it  unaided ; 
wherefore  they  were  compelled  to  decide  finally 
to  run  right  by  Philadelphia  with  a  hearty  laugh, 
pausing  only  long  enough  out  in  West  Philadel- 
phia to  dump  off  whatever  passengers  for  the  cen- 
ter of  the  city  might  be  aboard.  Here  was  an 
idea  not  altogether  displeasing  to  the  Philadel- 
phia passengers :  they  philosophically  agreed  that 
by  being  permitted  to  quit  the  train  out  in  West 
Philadelphia  those  among  them  who  had  been 
standing  in  the  aisles  since  leaving  New  York, 
which  included  most  of  them,  could  vary  the 
monotonous  journey  at  least  to  the  extent  of  get- 
ting a  seat  in  a  trolley-car  all  the  way  from  the 
West  Philadelphia  station  to  Broad  street. 
Thereafter  they  waited  eagerly  for  their  journey's 
end,  little  realizing  that  while  the  engineer  was 
walking  back  along  the  train  to  hold  his  roadside 
conference  with  the  conductor  he  had  noticed  the 
great  throngs  of  khaki-clad  lads  in  the  coaches. 
The  sight  of  all  the  soldiers  doubtless  had  con- 
vinced him  that  he  was  drawing  a  troop-train; 

18 


KNOCK!— AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

and  as  it  is  one  of  the  newest  articles  of  war  — 
as  every  soldier  in  the  new  army  has  learned  dur- 
ing recent  months  —  that  all  troop-trains  must  be 
drawn  just  fast  enough  forward  to  keep  the  cars 
from  backing  up,  the  afternoon  had  almost 
perished  before  we  came  in  sight  of  the  first  row 
of  two-ply  brick  houses  in  Philadelphia's  farthest 
Northeast. 

Dusk  had  begun  to  fall  by  the  time  we  had  ex- 
changed, at  the  West  Philadelphia  station,  our 
original  load  of  Philadelphians  for  a  new  and 
somewhat  larger  crop  of  Philadelphia  folk  head- 
ing from  their  own  home  town  for  Baltimore  or 
Washington, —  mostly  for  Washington.  By  this 
time  I  had  become  thoroughly  smoked  inside  and 
out,  and  I  remembered  the  wife,  who  is  rarely 
far  from  my  thoughts.  Fearing  that  she  was  as 
hungry  as  I  was,  I  looked  her  up  in  her  day- 
coach,  and  suggested  that  we  get  a  table  in  the 
dining-car  and  hang  on  to  it  all  the  way  into 
Washington. 

She  was  keen  for  the  idea,  especially  when  it 
came  to  her  mind  that  we  should  cross  the  Mason 
and  Dixon  Line  a  few  miles  farther  on,  and  would 
then,  so  she  put  it,  "  be  in  the  sunny  South,  where 
they  fry  chicken  so  deliciously."  The  dining-car 

19 


THE  WAK-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

conductor  agreed  with  the  wife  that  we  'd  still 
be  in  the  North  until  we  had  passed  some  place 
named  Iron  Hill,  wherever  that  is.  Meanwhile, 
by  wedging  a  way  into  the  aisle  of  the  diner  and 
standing  unostentatiously,  but  steadily,  close  to 
the  chair  of  the  most  nervous-looking  man,  and 
his  equally  nervous  wife,  in  the  whole  dining-car, 
that  particular  couple  couldn't  help  but  hurry 
through  their  meal.  In  a  run  of  less  than  ten 
miles  flat  we  had  secured  their  table  and  a  menu. 
Sure  enough,  chicken  fried  in  "  Southern 
style"  was  listed  on  the  dinner-card;  but  from 
the  waiter  we  learned  that  the  dining-car  manage- 
ment had  sold  the  last  of  it  up  near  Trenton  to 
a  drummer  in  the  shoe  line  from  Brocton,  Massa- 
chusetts. Also  the  car  was  "  all  sold  out "  in  the 
matter  of  roast  beef  and  candied  sweet  potatoes 
and  corn  fritters  and  corn  muffins  and  steaks  and 
chops.  The  waiter  assured  us,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  the  cold  tongue  was  beautiful,  also  that  there 
was  a  sufficient  quantity  of  potato  salad  left  to 
make  a  mess.  The  management,  it  seems,  had 
prepared  so  lavishly  for  luncheon  that  no  time 
had  been  left  to  think  about  dinner  arrangements. 
Also  the  unfortunate  dining-car  conductor  had 
had  no  way  of  finding  out  in  advance  that  the 

20 


KNOCK!— AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

train  was  to  be  just  as  jammed  with  hungry  pas- 
sengers on  that  day  as  it  had  been  on  preceding 
days  for  several  weeks,  or  that  the  train  was  go- 
ing to  be  as  far  behind  time  on  that  day  as  it 
had  been  for  days  and  weeks  innumerable. 

Nothing  was  left  for  us  to  do  but  to  kill  time  — 
and  so  hold  our  dining-car  seats  —  by  dawdling 
over  the  cold  tongue,  potato  salad,  and  a  copy 
of  Baedeker  that  the  wife  had  brought  along  to 
bone  up  on  the  way  down.  The  list  of  restau- 
rants on  the  first  page  of  the  Washington  section 
of  the  Baedeker  was  most  appetizing. 

"  There  's  a  whole  string  of  them,  with  the  ad- 
dresses and  everything!  "  the  wife  cried  happily, 
and  she  read  aloud.  "  Listen :  — '  Willard, 
Shoreham,  Raleigh  and  other  hotels  on  European 
plan ;  Capitol  restaurants ;  also  Rathskeller,  cor- 
ner Eighth  and  E  Streets ;  Munich  beer  at  Fritz 
Renter's  Rathskeller,  Pennsylvania  Avenue  and 
Second  Street,  much  frequented  by  Germans; 
Herman  Steig  — '  " 

I  interrupted  to  ask  what  year  that  particular 
edition  of  Baedeker  had  been  shot  off  the  press. 

"  In  1909.  But  no  matter,  here  are  a  lot  of 
others.  And  listen !  It  says  here :  '  CABS  — 
(Hacks  and  Hansoms).  For  15  squares  each 

21 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

pers.  25c.,  each  addit.  [The  wife  is  nothing  if  not 
literal,  always]  5  squares  10c.,  at  night  ( 12.30-5 
A.  M.  )  40  and  15c. ;  per  hour,  12  pers.' — no,  I 
guess  Mr.  Baedeker  means  one  or  two  persons  — 
1  per  hour,  1  hyphen  2  pers.,  75c.'  Only  75  cents 
fer  two  persons  for  a  whole  hour  in  a  taxicab 
Fancy  that ! " 

I  could  merely  mumble  in  reply  that  there  were 
limits  to  my  fancying  powers.  Even  when  I  'm 
fully  awake  I  'm  not  over-imaginative,  and  now  it 
was  getting  past  my  usual  bedtime;  wherefore 
the  old  bean  was  n't  working  even  as  freely  as 
usual  along  the  imagination  belt.  I  took  no  in- 
terest, but  dozed  off,  even  when  our  train  began 
to  make  a  leisurely  sort  of  sight-seeing  trip 
through  Baltimore,  stopping  for  a  few  minutes 
at  a  time  whenever  we  came  abreast  of  any  of  the 
more  interesting  industrial  plants  along  the  rail- 
way tracks. 

With  a  start  I  was  awakened  by  a  sound  like 
nothing  so  much  as  the  persistent  patter  of  rain. 
Yet  the  night  was  cloudless,  cold,  and  clear.  Our 
train  was  reposing  peacefully  on  a  siding  to  per- 
mit the  last  section  of  the  Night  Liquor  Local, 
eastbound  from  Washington  to  Baltimore,  to 
pant  impatiently  by.  Some  one  opened  a  ven- 

22 


KNOCK!— AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

tilator  in  the  car,  and  as  the  dry  roar  of  the 
Baltimore -bound  Liquor  Local  died  away  in  the 
night,  the  odd  pattering  noise  of  the  "  rain  "  grew 
louder.  Onward  then  our  express  jolted,  and 
with  each  foot  of  progress  the  "  rain "  patter 
began  to  be  threaded  with  a  continuous  tinkle  of 
tiny  bells.  We  listened,  puzzled,  until  the  soft 
patter  had  become  a  drum-fire  of  one  long  click- 
ing sound,  now  sharply  punctuated  with  the  dis- 
tinct tinkle  of  the  tiny  bells. 

"  I  have  it !  It 's  type-writers.  We  're  in 
Washington,  Girlie,  and  the  night  shift  is  win- 
ning the  war ! " 

I  had  it.  From  a  milky  way  of  lighted  office 
windows  came  the  "'  click-click-click-bing  !-click- 
ety-ick-ick-ick  -  bing  -  slam  -  clinnnnng  •  etyclick- 
ick-  ick-  ick-  bing-  cluunnnng-  zowie !-  bang."  We 
thrilled.  We  were  there !  Close  enough,  anyway, 
actually  to  hear  this  intellectual  evidence  of  the 
war  at  its  worst.  We  thought  it  worth  while,  as 
we  inched  our  way  near  and  nearer  the  outside 
ends  of  the  station  platform,  to  kill  time  with 
some  simple  arithmetic,  if  for  no  other  reason 
than  to  keep  our  record  absolutely  accurate.  In 
a  measured  space  of  time  we  counted  1,723,621,- 
804,752,116  distinct  clicks,  thereby  learning  by  a 

23 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

bit  of  simple  multiplication  that  in  an  average 
hour  even  the  night  shift  in  Washington  slams 
the  typewriter-keys  11,825,191,638,727,211,912,- 
390,736,777,652,442,392,151  times  to  win  the  war. 
The  wife  insists  that  I  've  got  the  hourly  type- 
writing clicks  all  balled  up  in  my  Washington 
notes  with  the  war  loan  figures,  and  maybe  she 's 
right ;  but  I  feel  sure  that  the  11,825,191,638,727,- 
211,912,390,736,777,652,442,392,151  is  the  total  of 
clicks. 

As  in  Philadelphia  our  train  was  too  long  to 
get  all  the  way  into  Washington.  Then  when  we 
had  walked  along  the  tracks  for  several  city 
squares  to  the  outside  end  of  the  platforms  we 
learned  that  the  passengers  who  had  seats  in  the 
forward  cars  had  corralled  all  the  redcaps  in 
sight.  Through  the  black  railroad  yard,  happily, 
came  a  man  with  a  lantern,  who  explained  to  us 
that  the  whole  trouble  was  that  Washington  was 
overcrowded.  We  thanked  him. 

"  According  to  the  cops,"  our  kind  informant 
went  on,  "  this  town  has  jumped  from  350,000  to 
400,000.  And  as  if  that  ain't  bad  enough,  the 
extra  crowd  includes  Arthur  Brisbane  and  Billy 
Sunday,  and  they  say  Colonel  Roosevelt  is  threat- 
ening to  come,  too.  It's  something  fierce !  " 

24 


KNOCK!— AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

"  My  good  man,"  said  the  wife,  after  we  had 
thanked  him  for  the  additional  information,  "  I 
apologize  for  asking  one  of  you  proud  Southern- 
ers to  descend  to  manual  labor,  but  could  n't  you 
help  us  get  our  luggage  from  this  spot  closer  into 
town?" 

The  wife  was  right ;  he  was  one  of  those  proud 
Southerners.  Under  cover  of  darkness  I  slipped 
the  catch  loose  on  the  little  old  black  traveling- 
bag  and  whispered  to  him,  beyond  earshot  of  the 
wife,  whether  he  had  such  a  thing  about  him  as  a 
corkscrew.  He  did  n't  have  anything  except  a 
corkscrew.  Stifling  his  pride  for  the  nonce,  the 
Southern  gentleman  not  only  grabbed  up  all  the 
wife's  bags  and  boxes;  he  even  tried  to  pry  my 
little  old  black  traveling-bag  away  from  my  firm 
grasp  also. 

Then  somewhere  on  the  fringe  of  the  concourse 
crowd  we  came  upon  a  stray  redcap.  He  was  all 
sewed  up,  he  said,  with  engagements  that  would 
keep  him  busy  for  half  an  hour.  Standing  just 
beneath  the  redcap's  visor  I  breathed  ever  so 
gently,  just  once,  and  the  redcap  paused  rigidly 
in  his  flight,  one  foot  suspended  in  mid-air,  and 
his  eyes  glued  to  the  little  black  bag.  He  was 
pointing  like  a  bird  dog.  There  was  another 

25 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

private  conference  on  the  side  lines,  during  which 
I  learned  that  the  redcap  not  only  owned  a  cork- 
screw, but  also  one  of  these  little  folding-cups  of 
aluminum  and  a  bad  chill.  As  I  took  him  behind 
a  pillar  and  gave  him  a  tip  that  half  filled  the 
folding-cup, —  he  had  absolutely  dismissed  all  his 
previous  engagements  by  now, —  the  fact  flashed 
upon  me  that  right  there  in  my  own  little  black 
bag  I  had  a  key  to  the  city  that  would  enable  me 
to  go  any  place,  enter  everywhere,  get  anything ! 
A  moment  later  the  key  failed  to  work  when 
we  tried  to  get  through  the  station  crowd  to  meet 
the  open  air.  It  seems  that  every  train  arriving 
from  any  place,  so  the  redcap  explained,  contains 
at  least  one  new  member,  often  many,  for  each  of 
the  war- work  committees  now  in  the  making  in 
Washington.  Envoys  from  all  of  the  war-work 
committees  also  are  in  waiting  at  the  Union  Sta- 
tion always  to  welcome  the  incoming  committee- 
men  ;  wherefore  we  had  to  try  to  jimmy  a  passage 
through  envoys  and  old-time  members  of  com- 
mittees welcoming  new-comers  to  the  Interde- 
partmental Advisory  Committee  of  the  Council 
of  National  Defense,  the  Executive  Committee  of 
the  Committee  Under  the  Advisory  Committee, 
the  Committee  on  Raw  Materials,  Minerals,  and 

26 


KNOCK!— AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

Metals,  the  National  Committee  of  Patriotic  So- 
cieties' Committee  to  Prevent  the  Spread  of  Per- 
nicious Rumors,  the  Committee  on  Wire  Com- 
munication of  the  Committee  of  Telegraphs  and 
Telephones,  the  Committee  on  Inland  Water 
Transportation  of  the  Council  of  National  De- 
fense, the  Committee  of  Medical  Service  of  For- 
eign Commissions,  the  Committee  of  the  Aircraft 
Production  Board,  the  Automotive  Transport 
Committee,  the  Cooperative  Committees  of  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the  United  States,  the 
Committee  of  the  Industrial  Inventory  Section, 
the  Friends  of  Irish  Freedom  Committee  for  Irish 
Representation  at  the  Peace  Council  of  the  Allied 
Nations,  the  Committee  on  Storage  Facilities, 
the  Executive  Committee  of  the  National  Re- 
search Council,  the  Committee  of  the  General 
Medical  Section  Board  and  Medical  Section  of 
the  National  Council,  the  American  Committee 
for  Polish  Independence,  the  Committee  of  the 
National  Council  Section  in  Cooperation  with 
the  States,  the  Committee  on  Transportation  and 
Communication,  the  Advisory  Committee  for 
Aeronautics,  the  Alabama-Mississippi  Emergency 
Bureau,  the  Georgia-Florida  Yellow  Pine  Emer- 
gency Bureau,  the  Copper  Producers  Committee, 

27 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

the  Executive  Committee  of  the  National  Civil 
Liberties  Bureau,  the  Committee  of  the  Ship- 
building Labor  Adjustment  Board,  the  Commit- 
tee of  the  Popular  Government  League,  the  Rail- 
road Executives  Advisory  Committees,  the  Com- 
mittee of  the  Southern  Hardwood  Emergency 
Bureau,  the  National  Committee  of  the  Emer- 
gency Peace  Federation,  the  Committee  on  Gas 
and  Electric  Service,  the  Committee  of  the  Wash- 
ington Business  Service  Bureau,  the  Committee 
of  the  National  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  the 
Importation  of  German-bred  Police-dogs  into  the 
United  States, — and  a  few  more.  We  were  fortu- 
nate in  arriving  on  a  comparatively  quiet  night. 
Some  evenings  the  concourse  is  crowded. 

They  took  every  motor-car  in  sight.  Nothing 
was  left  to  the  wife  and  me  except  to  stand  on  the 
fringe  of  the  committees,  varying  the  monotony 
as  best  we  could  by  gazing  in  awe  southward 
toward  the  misty  dome  of  the  Capitol.  There  it 
towered,  white  yet  vague,  above  the  vista  of  Dela- 
ware Avenue,  the  ghost  of  a  great,  bounding  bal- 
loon wraith,  tugging  at  its  fastenings  as  the  thou- 
sands of  cubic  feet  of  hot  air  therein  urged  it,  the 
father  and  mother  of  all  gasbags,  ever  to  fly  to 
the  heavens. 

28 


KNOCK!— AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

We  never  did  get  a  taxicab.  In  Washington 
now  there  aren't  any  taxicabs.  Close  on  the 
heels  of  the  first  onrush  of  war  patriots  upon  the 
capital  to  save  the  nation  had  come  taxicab 
chauffeurs  from  Baltimore,  Richmond,  Phila- 
delphia, Wilmington,  Pittsburgh,  everywhere, 
their  battered  tin  taxi-flivvers  careening  madly 
through  clouds  of  autumnal  dust  as  they,  too, 
converged  upon  Washington  to  help  win  the  war. 
As  each  taxi-skipper  crossed  into  the  District  he 
first  inquired  his  way  toward  the  banks  of  the 
Potomac, —  known  locally  as  the  p'Tomk, —  and 
wrenched  the  taximeter  off  his  car  and  flung  it  far 
out  into  the  stream.  Then,  with  the  first  cold 
weather,  ice-floes,  which  in  former  years  had 
floated  onward  calmly  to  the  sea,  began  to  hesi- 
tate. By  the  time  the  wife  and  I  reached  the 
capital  the  oldest  inhabitants  were  standing  on 
the  banks  of  the  p'Tomk  at  gaze,  mystified,  the 
river  clogged  with  ice-chunks  as  never  before. 
It  was  not  until  late  in  the  winter  that  the  city 
authorities  finally  discovered  that  the  ice-cakes 
could  not  move  because  the  entire  channel  was 
filled  up  with  taximeters  from  Pittsburgh  and  all 
points  east. 

We  corralled  and  roped  some  sort  of  car  at  last, 
29 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

scarred  a  bit  where  the  taximeter  had  been  hast- 
ily jimmied  off  and  thrown  away ;  decorated,  like 
all  the  other  one-time  taxicabs  with  a  legend, 
"  Auto  To  Hire  " ;  manned  by  a  direct  descendant 
of  Captain  Kidd;  and  finished  off  aft  with  a  flap- 
ping piece  of  the  torn  lining  of  the  car  top,  a  sort 
of  black  flag  doubtless,  being  permitted  by  the 
skipper  of  the  cab  to  flutter  there  in  lieu  of  a 
Jolly  Roger.  The  wife  had  secured,  by  executing 
a  particularly  prompt  jump,  the  fifth  seat  inside 
the  four-seated  taxicabin,  and  simultaneously  I 
had  eased  myself  beside  young  Kidd  outside  on 
the  hurricane-deck.  "  To  the  Pelham,"  cried  a 
perfect  stranger  who  was  seated  with  the  wife 
inside.  "  To  the  Williams,"  I  said  simply,  I  in 
my  ignorance  starting  in  away  down  the  alphabet 
at  the  W's,  when,  had  I  only  known  then,  it  would 
have  been  perhaps  as  well  and  certainly  no  worse 
had  I  started  in  first  at  the  hotels  beginning  with 
A,  and  systematically  run  through  the  list  all  the 
way  to  the  Zenoble  Arms,  which  is  in  farthest 
Georgetown. 

"  Boss,"  whispered  the  chauffeur,  blushing  as 
deeply  as  it  is  possible  for  a  chauffeur  to  blush 
and  trying  the  while  to  hide  his  shame  by  pre- 
tending to  search  for  a  flivver  pedal  concealed  at 

30 


KNOCK!— AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

the  base  of  the  luggage  mountain  piled  to  my  hat- 
brim  — "  Boss,  if  you  know  where  the  Pelham  is, 
and  '11  show  me  how  to  take  this  gent  there,  I  '11 
take  you  and  your  missus  to  the  Williams  for  only 
one  buck  each.  I  seen  the  Williams  this  after- 
noon, and  I  can  find  it  again ;  but  I  ain't  got  the 
lay  of  the  rest  of  the  town  much  yet  because  I 
only  got  here  with  this  old  boat  of  mine  from 
Bristol,  Pennsylvania,  late  last  night." 

All  through  that  night  we  drove,  and  the  final 
fare  was  far  from  one  buck.  At  the  Williams, 
the  Pelham,  and  so  on  up  the  alphabet,  I  stood 
before  the  room  clerks  just  long  enough  to  ask  for 
a  room,  listen  a  moment  as  the  clerks  broke  out 
into  hearty  laughs,  and  turned  around  and 
walked  right  out  to  the  waiting  taxicab  again. 
From  the  Anacostia  west  and  north  we  went  all 
the  way  up  to  the  edge  of  the  Georgetown  timber- 
line,  and  back  and  forward  and  back  again. 

Day  broke.  I  awoke  with  a  start.  Inside  the 
taxicabin  my  wife  slept,  oblivious.  At  my  elbow 
the  taximurderist  was  snoring  steadily;  and 
steadily  the  car  was  running,  around  and  around 
and  around  Dupont  Circle.  It  seems  that  the 
chauffeur,  finding  that  we  both  had  succumbed 
to  weariness  an  hour  before  dawn,  had  artfully 

31 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

set  the  steering-wheel  so  that  the  car  would  con- 
tinue to  loop  itself  in  slow  rings  around  Admiral 
Dupont  until  daylight  should  appear ;  and  he  had 
fastened  the  steering-gear  (after  learning  by  ex- 
periment just  how  far  to  the  left  it  should  be 
twisted)  by  piling  our  luggage  firmly  around  the 
tiller.  Then  he  had  snuggled  down  into  his 
raccoon  coat-collar  and  had  turned  in. 

I  awakened  him. 

"  On  one  of  these  swings  around  the  circle,"  I 
suggested,  "  let 's  take  a  chance  and  dart  right 
out  into  any  of  these  streets  and  go  to  some  other 
part  of  town,  what?  We  have  much  to  do :  we 
have  to  check  this  baggage  some  place,  put  on  the 
breakfast  nose-bag,  and  then  start  all  over  to 
look  for  a  room.  Here 's  a  likely-looking  avenue. 
Shoot!" 

And  in  no  time  we  had  set  ourselves  back 
twenty  dollars,  which  the  chauffeur  concluded 
was  fair  enough  for  having  put  us  up  for  the 
night,  and  in  front  of  a  great  hotel  I  aroused  the 
wife.  Out  the  hotel  door  at  that  moment  came  a 
young  ex-mayor  of  New  York,  who  had  just  come 
to  Washington  to  get  a  majority  commission  as 
an  aviator.  He  was  sleeping  on  a  couch  indoors, 
he  told  us,  at  the  foot  of  the  bed  of  a  friend,  also 

32 


I  took  him  behind  a  pillar  and  gave  him  a  tip 


KNOCK!— AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED 

from  Manhattan,  who  had  taken  him  in  at  a  time 
when  nothing  seemed  left  to  the  ex-mayor  but  a 
park  bench.  The  bedroom  was  a  small  one  and 
lacked  a  bath,  the  ex-mayor  went  on,  but  he 
kindly  insisted  that  there  was  still  enough  vacant 
floor  space  upon  which  I  might  pile  our  luggage 
temporarily,  or  until  we  had  secured  some  sleep- 
ing-quarters. And  after  that  the  wife  and  I 
had  one  of  those  simple  old  lovely  Southern 
breakfasts  for  $4.80,  and  we  sat  there  and  sipped 
our  coffee  silently  for  a  long,  long  time,  thinking 
thoughts  of  the  day's  campaign. 


33 


CHAPTER  II 

ROOMS,    RUM   AND   RUCTIONS 

THERE  are  only  three  ways  of  getting  sleep- 
ing-quarters in  the  national  capital  when 
one  and  one's  wife  start  out  on  a  trip  to  see  the 
war-whirl  in  Washington  these  days,  especially 
when  one  and  the  wife  debark,  unannounced, 
round  midnight  from  a  train  which,  on  the  sol- 
emn promise  of  the  compiler  of  the  railway- 
schedule,  is  due  to  reach  the  Union  Station, 
Washington,  at  the  velvety,  wistful,  cocktail  hour 
of  twilight.  In  the  first  place,  one  may  spend 
the  first  night  snatching  bits  of  sleep  in  the 
meterless  "  taxicab  " —  rechristened  an  Auto-To- 
Hire  —  between  fruitless  visits  to  all  the  hotels 
there  are,  which  was  what  the  wife  and  I  did; 
secondly,  one  may  start  out  bright  and  early 
the  next  morning  and  begin  by  cruising  back  over 
the  hotel  route  again  to  find  any  sort  of  Wash- 
ington hotel  room  and  bath,  ending  up,  if  one  is 
lucky,  by  finding  them  in  Baltimore,  which  was 

34 


ROOMS,  RUM  AND  RUCTIONS 

what  the  wife  did;  and,  finally,  one  may  spend 
the  second  night  sleeping  in  a  Washington  bar- 
room, which  was  what  I  did. 

It  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  slept  in  a  bar- 
room all  night.  Since  the  previous  November  1, 
or  the  date  upon  which  Congress  had  spread  a 
big  blue  blotting-pad  all  over  the  District  of 
Columbia  and  had  rubbed  the  district  as  good  as 
dry,  the  particular  hotel  bar-room  in  mind 
had  n't  been  a  practical  bar-room  to  the  extent 
of  using  it  for  alcoholic  illuminating  purposes. 
Still,  the  clerk  of  the  hotel,  which  is  on  a  Four- 
teenth and  K  Street  corner,  continued  to  speak 
of  the  room  as  a  bar  in  a  sentimental,  fondly 
reminiscent  way,  in  tones  one  uses  when  speak- 
ing of  "  grandpa's  room "  long,  long  months 
after  the  dear  old  gentleman  has  perished. 

This  clerk,  like  all  Washington  hotel  clerks  in 
war- time,  had  laughed  heartily  when  asked  for 
a  room  and  bath;  then  a  softer  emotion  seemed 
to  grip  him,  and  he  began  to  talk  sentimentally 
about  "  our  bar."  It  was  below-stairs,  in  the 
basement,  he  said,  and  seven  beds  had  been 
placed  therein  only  that  very  morning.  For  two 
dollars,  the  clerk  continued,  I  might  sleep  all 
night  in  the  bar.  He  added  that  I  could  take  it 

35 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

or  leave  it,  and  he  contributed  the  additional  in- 
formation that  it  would  cost  a  great  deal  more 
than  two  dollars  to  sleep  all  night  in  a  bar-room 
in  any  other  town  between  New  York  and  San 
Francisco,  which  is  doubtless  true. 

The  wife,  of  course,  could  not  sleep  there. 
Nevertheless,  I  decided  to  take  an  option  on  one 
of  the  two-dollar  bar  beds,  which  the  clerk  said 
I  might  do  by  paying  something  on  account ;  say, 
two  dollars  on  account.  Then  followed  a  weary 
day  of  room-seeking,  varied  with  real  thrills 
every  time  the  flivver  of  a  war  contractor,  headed 
toward  the  Treasury  to  dig  another  scuttleful  of 
money  out  of  the  bins  in  the  Treasury  basement, 
exploded  past  the  eyelashes  of  another  lineal 
descendant  of  Captain  Kidd  who  was  navigating 
our  meterless  "  taxi."  The  hastening  contract- 
ors hit  us  only  twice  that  first  day,  and  they  were 
good  enough  to  scatter  their  shots  so  that  one 
contractor  hit  the  wife's  side  of  our  Auto-To- 
Hire,  damaging  her  mud-guard,  whereas  the 
other  contractor  slammed  in  on  my  side  of  our 
car,  thus  avoiding  all  jealousy,  and  hit  me  back 
of  the  Pension  Office. 

Too  much  was  enough.  Half  a  dozen  squares 
to  the  east  of  the  Pension  building  loomed  the 

36 


ROOMS,  RUM  AND  RUCTIONS 

Union  Station.  There  we  repaired  forthwith, 
and  by  telephone  the  wife  got  in  touch  with  the 
Baltimore  Young  Woman's  Christian  Associa- 
tion and  a  room.  I  had  just  time  to  grab  off  a 
seat  for  her  in  an  outgoing  day-coach  of  one  of 
the  late  afternoon  sections  of  the  Washington- 
Baltimore  Liquor  Local,  -which  reaches  Balti- 
more just  before  the  dinner-hour,  and  is  known, 
I  believe,  to  some  of  the  district  natives  as  the 
Martini  Flier,  and  by  many  more  as  the  Bronx 
Express,  each  according  to  taste.  Anyway,  this 
particular  aperitif  section  was  ready  to  get  under 
way  toward  the  dinner-hour;  so  the  wife  and  I 
parted  regretfully,  but  cheered  by  the  realiza- 
tion that  temporarily,  at  least,  we  would  have 
comfortable  sleeping-quarters;  the  wife  in  the 
Baltimore  Y.  W.  C.  A.  and  I  in  the  Washington 
bar-room.  Fair  enough ! 

With  no  sleep  so  far  on  our  little  pleasure- 
jaunt  since  leaving  the  old  home  in  Manhattan 
the  day  before  save  the  occasional  taxinaps  on 
the  previous  night's  cruise  of  the  city  in  search 
of  a  room,  I  was  keen  for  my  bar-room  bed  the 
minute  the  wife  had  departed  on  the  Baltimore- 
bound  Liquor  Local.  But  the  uncertainty  of 
our  future  housing  accommodations  during  our 

37 


THE  WAK-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

prospective  Washington  visit  caused  me  to  spend 
what  was  left  of  the  day  and  evening  searching 
the  widths  and  depths  of  Washington  in  a  last 
effort  to  find  quarters.  Betimes  I  broke  the 
monotony  of  my  lone  motor-ride  by  telephoning 
to  the  houses  of  friends  who  had  rented  homes  in 
Washington  in  ante-bellum  days,  and  were  still 
able  to  pay  bellum  rents.  As  I  made  my  identity 
known  to  said  friends  over  the  wire,  the  news 
that  I  was  in  Washington  was  about  as  welcome 
as  a  coal  bill  in  father's  Christmas  mail.  One 
might  have  thought,  to  judge  from  the  cordiality 
of  the  voice  without  the  smile  at  the  other  end 
of  the  telephone  line,  that  I  was  Billy  Sunday 
calling  up  a  friend  and  accidentally  getting  in 
touch  with  the  Distillers'  League. 

One  could  n't,  however,  blame  these  Washing- 
ton friends :  that  thought,  long  ago  struck  off,  to 
the  effect  that  "  Providence  provides  us  with  our 
relatives,  but,  thank  Heaven!  we  can  pick  our 
own  friends,"  doesn't  work  out  in  Washington 
as  well  as  once  it  did.  In  times  like  these,  for 
instance,  young  Brother-in-law  Horace,  junior 
at  Yale  if  he  had  gone  back  the  autumn  after 
the  war  declaration,  decides  to  leave  the  dear  old 
col  flat  on  its  back  in  New  Haven  and  go  down 

38 


ROOMS,  BUM  AND  RUCTIONS 

to  Washington  and  look  around  for  a  govern- 
mental job,  where  he  can  grapple  with  some  big 
work  that  requires  brains  and  untiring  energy 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  So  in  drops  Horace, 
accompanied  by  much  luggage,  and  stays  at 
Brother-in-law  Elmer's  house,  out  Chevy  Chase 
way,  while  looking  for  the  best  job  in  the  army, 
navy,  or  civil  department  which  will  enable  him 
to  bring  the  kaiser  to  his  knees,  yelling  for  help, 
in  the  shortest  possible  time.  And  Horace  has 
scarcely  settled  subacutely  in  the  guest-room 
when  young  Cousin  Estelle,  the  celebrated 
Philadelphia  stenographer,  comes  to  take  the 
room  opposite  the  one  Brother-in-law  Horace  has 
commandeered,  Estelle  also  in  search  of  a  job 
where  she  can  save  the  nation.  When  a  brand- 
new  population  about  the  size  of  a  manufactur- 
ing city  like  South  Bend  drops  in  unexpectedly 
upon  a  small-sized  large  town,  already  comfort- 
ably filled,  such  as  Washington,  there  are  bound 
to  be  a  few  crates  of  relatives  in  the  consignment. 
Consequently  the  residential  sections  of  the  na- 
tional capital  early  in  the  war  had  become  an 
omnibus  family  reunion,  wherein  pop  and  mom 
soon  were  all  fed  up  with  visitors. 

"  Come  up  and  see  us  one  day  while  you  7re 
39 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

here,"  they  said  over  the  telephone  to  me,  with  all 
the  warmth  of  Charles  Evans  Hughes  opening 
his  front  door  and  finding  a  delegation  of  Cali- 
fornia voters  on  the  front  stoop.  Now  if  they 
had  only  asked  me  to  come  up  even  for  one  night 
I  might  have  given  three  rousing  cheers.  Not  a 
chance.  Still,  I  hold  no  grudges ;  they  're  more 
to  be  pitied  than  censured. 

All  that  was  left  for  me  to  do  was  to  hang  up 
the  receiver,  climb  into  the  old  seagoing  pirate 
craft,  Auto-To-Hire,  and  pull  up  the  mud-hook 
again.  The  later  the  hour,  the  more  that  bar- 
room bed  invited ;  but  before  giving  up  and  turn- 
ing in  I  tacked  around  circles  and  squares  and 
in  and  out  avenues  and  streets  long  enough  to 
learn  that  in  a  war-time  Washington  there  are, 
to  wit:  hall  bedrooms  (or  if-you-can-get-'em  hall 
bedrooms)  of  an  ante-bellum  rental  of  ten  dol- 
lars a  month  which  suddenly  have  puffed  up  into 
bellum  if-you-can-get-'ems  at  forty  and  fifty  dol- 
lars a  month;  that  very  swagger  houses,  which 
recently  were  rented  for  ten  thousand  dollars  a 
year  now  bring  twenty-five  thousand  dollars 
yearly;  that  one  lady,  who  had  had  an  unfur- 
nished apartment  for  which  she  paid  ninety  dol- 
lars a  month,  had  patriotically  rented  the  rooms, 

40 


ROOMS,  RUM  AND  RUCTIONS 

furnished,  during  the  first  war  winter  at  a  rate 
of  only  five  hundred  dollars  a  month,  pocketing 
three  thousand  dollars  for  six  months  as  her  slight 
bit  toward  winning  the  war;  that  ante-bellum 
furnished  apartments  in  the  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  a  month  class  bring  very  often  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  dollars  and  more  a  month  in 
bellum  days;  that  befo'-de-wah  —  ouh  wah  — 
flats,  unfurnished,  at  seventy-five  dollars  now 
commonly  are  rented  at  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  furnished. 
About  the  only  government  priority  certificate 
which  a  man  of  influence  cannot  get  is  a  priority 
certificate  for  a  room  and  bath. 

Just  three  persons  came  to  notice  on  that  first 
day  of  cruising  who  seemed  ecstatically  happy 
over  the  sudden  swamping  of  their  home  town. 
The  three  were  young  government  clerks  of 
vision.  With  the  first  of  the  war-time  onrush 
the  three  had  taken  a  running  leap  at  the  throat 
of  a  renting  agent,  and  had  corralled  three  vacant 
apartments,  paying  all  of  thirty-five  dollars  a 
month  for  each  of  the  flats.  Then  they  had  raced 
into  the  nearest  instalment  house,  and  had 
carted  away  to  the  three  vacuous  flats  enough 
bilious-looking  yellow  oak  furniture  to  cause  the 

41 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

late  William  Morris  to  turn  three  times  rapidly 
in  his  grave.  And  as  most  government  em- 
ployees round  Washington  seem  to  be  able  to 
knock  off  work  about  noon  each  day  and  keep 
absolutely  out  of  the  war  until  2:30  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  the  three,  within  a  luncheon 
"hour/'  had  so  thoroughly  rented  their,  in  a 
manner  of  speaking,  furnished  flats  that  there- 
after they  have  been  splitting  up  almost  five  hun- 
dred dollars  rent  profits  monthly  into  three  piles. 
Now  they  stand  in  front  of  the  Treasury  daily 
and  laugh  and  laugh  and  laugh  at  it. 

A  late-arriving  visitor  can  in  a  pinch,  of  course, 
look  up  a  Turkish  bath;  but  what's  the  use? 
There  was  the  famous  coal-baron  magnate  who 
came  to  Washington  in  recent  days  to  confer 
with  Fuel  Administrator  Garfield.  When  late 
in  the  afternoon  the  conference  was  ended,  the 
coal  magnate  of  millions  decided  to  stroll  toward 
one  of  the  large  hotels  and  casually  select  a 
pleasant  room  and  bath,  just  like  that!  And 
some  time  after  midnight,  still  sleepily  seeking 
a  room  that  was  not,  the  magnate  saw  an  electric 
lighted  "Turkish  Bath"  sign  in  G  Street, 
Down  in  the  basement  depths  he  came  upon  a 
bath  as  full  as  three  aces  and  a  pair  of  kings. 

42 


ROOMS,  EUM  AND  RUCTIONS 

There  was  one  barber-chair  still  vacant,  how- 
ever; the  other  chairs  in  the  tonsorial  salon  of 
the  baths  had,  hours  earlier,  been  rented  out  for 
sleeping-quarters.  And  the  coal  magnate  of  mil- 
lions, breathing  a  night  prayer  of  tearful  thank- 
fulness, peeled  off  his  coat  and  collar  and  climbed 
into  the  only  vacant  barber-chair  berth  and  slept 
whatever  sleep  of  innocence  still  is  permitted  to 
a  coal-baron  magnate.  So  far  as  can  be  learned, 
Washington  has  n't  yet  begun  to  rent  sleeping- 
spaces  on  the  bootblacks'-chairs,  but  the  war  is 
young  yet.  Nor  in  dentists'-chairs.  The  chauf- 
feurs of  the  Auto-To-Hire  cars,  freshly  arrived 
from  far  scattered  cities,  to  be  in  on  the  pickin's, 
were  sleeping  nightly,  however,  in  their  one-time 
taxicabs  early  in  the  war-days,  even  when  the 
taxibrigands  could  find  nothing  in  the  way  of  a 
garage  roof  but  the  clear,  cold  skies  of  night. 

When  one  stops  to  think  that  about  the  time 
America  jumped  into  the  war- whirl  there  were, 
all  told,  only  about  eighty-five  persons  in  the 
offices  of  the  Ordnance  Department,  including 
everybody  from  the  boss  to  the  office  boy,  and 
that  before  the  following  Christmas  there  were 
in  the  same  department  in  Washington  about 
thirty-five  hundred  souls,  which  promises  to  be 

43 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

closer  to  ten  thousand  by  the  time  these  lines 
stagger  into  print,  then  one  must  see  that  this, 
plus  a  like  swelling  of  forces  in  innumerable 
other  governmental  departments,  early  resulted 
in  a  considerable  hatful  of  new  white  folks 
around  town.  A  couple  of  Easter  bonnet-boxes 
would  have  housed  the  Ordnance  Department, 
even  as  late  as  two  years  after  General  Leonard 
Wood  had  begun  to  say  it  was  utterly  impossible 
for  America  to  keep  out  of  the  war.  Then 
shortly  after  it  began  to  dawn  upon  Washington 
that  General  Wood  not  only  was  right,  but  could 
produce  the  papers  and  prove  it,  more  than  a 
dozen  shed-like  buildings,  each  a  city  square 
long,  had  to  be  thrown  together  down  round 
Sixth  and  D  streets,  N.  W.,  to  house  the  ord- 
nance forces.  The  figures  should  n't  be  disturb- 
ing. Washington  always  was  a  glutton  for 
numerals  of  magnitude,  and  with  the  present 
jump  in  population,  and  trifles  such  as  the  bil- 
lions voted  every  few  minutes  by  Congress  for 
something  or  other  urgently  needed,  figures  are 
flying  in  a  war-time  Washington  which,  at  least 
by  comparison,  make  even  the  grand  total  of  the 
"  Games  Lost "  column  of  the  Washington  base- 

44 


BOOMS,  RUM  AND  RUCTIONS 

ball  team  almost  look  positively  paltry.  By  the 
time  I  had  finally  headed  toward  my  first,  and 
last,  sleep  in  my  semi-private  bedroom  and  bar 
in  the  little  hotel  in  Fourteenth  Street,  it 's  safe 
to  say  that  the  only  vacant  thing  to  be  found  in 
all  Washington  was  the  German  embassy,  which 
is  still  respected  as  an  embassy,  although  empty 
—  respected,  one  might  say,  a  hodderned  sight 
more  than  when  it  was  n't  empty. 

And  so,  when  I  had  the  taxitiller  turned  to 
head  me  toward  my  bedroom  bar  or  bar-room 
bed,  whatever  the  term  is,  the  sum  total  of  my 
twenty-four-hour  quest  for  a  room  was  the  exact 
knowledge  that  the  late  Count  von  Bernstorff's 
bed  in  the  German  embassy  was  vacant.  Now, 
as  I  've  intimated,  my  bedroom  bar  had  ceased 
functioning  as  a  practical  bar,  having  curled  up 
into  a  little  dry  wad  and  perished  on  the  eve  of 
the  previous  November  1.  When  I  told  the 
night  clerk  that  a  day  clerk,  in  exchange  for  one 
of  those  new  two-dollar  bills  that  fool  one  into 
thinking  it 's  a  hundred-dollar  note,  had  given 
me  at  least  a  promise  that  I  might  use  one  of  the 
seven  beds  in  the  bar,  the  night  clerk  first  offered 
his  congratulations  and  then  opened  the  hotel 

45 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

safe  and  locked  therein  my  watch  and  whatever 
change  the  Auto-To-Hire  bandit  chief  had  let  me 
have  back. 

I  had  been  leaning  lightly  against  what  I  had 
mistaken  for  a  black-walnut  newel-post  upon 
which,  so  I  supposed,  some  one  had  thoughtlessly 
hung  an  admiral's  dress  uniform  for  the  night. 
The  clerk  shook  this  entire  upstanding  arrange- 
ment into  wakefulness  while  I  still  leaned 
against  it.  Sure  enough  (or,  "Yes,  indeed,"  as 
Washington  would  say  it),  it  was  a  long,  slim 
half  portion  of  smoked  ham,  garbed  in  the  uni- 
form of  a  bell-boy.  Him  I  followed  warily  down 
a  semi-dark  stairway,  thence  behind  a  furnace, 
or  maybe  it  was  in  front  of  the  furnace ;  and  so, 
ever  onward,  past  piles  of  baggage,  crates  of 
empty  milk  bottles,  a  door  pathetically  labeled, 
"  Wine  Room  —  No  Admittance !  " 

Finally,  within  a  dark  interior,  the  bell-hop, 
now  clearly  planning  to  wake  up,  turned  on  a 
lone  electric  bulb,  which  was  just  above  the  only 
unoccupied  bed  in  the  bar-room.  In  addition  to 
the  swaggerest-sized  mirror  I  had  ever  slept  in 
front  of,  there  were  four  little  white  iron  beds 
sticking  out  from  one  wall,  with  the  bed  I  was 
to  sleep  in  and  two  more  jutting  into  the  room 

46 


ROOMS,  RUM  AND  RUCTIONS 

from  the  opposite  wall.  And  from  the  scents 
and  sights  and  the  all-penetrating  tonal  quality 
of  snore  sounds  generally,  I  decided  that  either 
the  room  had  been  surreptitiously  used  as  a  bar 
until  a  very  recent  moment,  or  that  all  six  of 
my  unknown  sleeping  companions  were  a  group 
of  little  pals  who  had  just  got  in  on  a  hornebound 
excursion  section  —  after  an  evening  in  the 
Monument  City  —  of  the  Washington-Baltimore- 
Washington  Night  Liquor  Local. 

I  had  guessed  right  twice.  The  four  in  the 
beds  across  the  room  were  gone  beyond  recall; 
I  might  have  practised  for  an  hour  on  my  slip- 
horn,  which  I  do  in  our  apartment-house  in  New 
York  nightly  for  at  least  an  hour  before  turning 
in,  and  they  never  would  have  come  out  of  their 
state  of  coma.  But  the  two  intellectuals  on  my 
side  of  the  room  evidently  were  putting  up  a 
better  battle ;  in  fact,  one  of  them  came  to  suffi- 
ciently to  reach  out  for  what  remained  of  a  quart 
bottle  beside  his  bed,  once  he  had  glimpsed  a 
stranger  beginning  to  undress  in  his  boudoir, 
and  hastily  tucked  the  glassware  under  his  pil- 
low. I  got  only  a  glimpse  of  the  bottle,  but  I  re- 
member being  impressed  with  the  fact  that  the 
label  of  the  bottle  was  decorated  with  either  three 

47 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

or  five  stars,  and  therefore  probably  was  the 
property  of  at  least  a  general,  perhaps  a  ranking 
full  admiral. 

"  They  had  n't  ought  ta  done  it !  " 

The  sudden  words,  their  very  pathos,  coming 
as  they  did  from  the  dim  corner  occupied  by  the 
third  bed  on  my  side  of  the  room,  caused  me  to 
wrhirl  round  and  peer  sharply  beyond  the  bed  of 
my  full  admiral  neighbor.  It  was  my  neigh- 
bor's brother  intellectual  who  was  speaking,  gaz- 
ing the  while  at  a  framed  advertising  lithograph 
on  the  dim  far  wall,  a  picture  representing  the 
late  Christopher  Columbus,  all  togged  out  in  red 
tights  and  things  and  quaffing  a-  man's  size 
seidel  of  some  sort  of  Columbus,  Ohio,  beer  on 
the  sands  of  San  Salvador.  Long  the  man  gazed 
at  the  lithograph,  and  his  head  began  to  droop, 
and  gently  he  started  to  weep.  He  was  crying, 
he  told  us  between  sobs,  because  Christopher 
Columbus,  that  greatest  of  Amurican  admirals, 
that  dauntless  genius  among  sea-captains,  that 
mighty  discoverer  who  had  given  a  world  to  the 
world,  had  been  sent  back  to  Europe  in  chains. 

"  They  had  n't  ought  ta  done  it,  Billy,"  he 
sobbed.  "  Billy,  I  leave  it  to  you.  As  man  to 
man,  am  I  right  or  am  I  wrong?  " 

48 


And  the  coal  magnate  climbed  into  the  only  vacant  barber-chair 


ROOMS,  RUM  AND  RUCTIONS 

Then  I  knew  I  was  in  a  bar-room.  One  may 
be  led,  blindfolded,  into  a  boiler  factory,  a 
stamping-mill,  a  Broadway  cabaret,  or  even  a 
Democratic  convention,  and  perhaps  be  unable 
to  cry  out  while  sightless  the  nature  of  the  in- 
stitution; but  let  one  be  led,  sightless,  into  a 
gathering  where  one  overhears  the  stock  ques- 
tion, "  I  leave  it  to  you.  As  man  to  man,  am  I 
right  or  am  I  wrong?  "  then  one  is  n't  possibly  or 
probably  in  a  bar-room.  It  is  a  bar-room.  As 
best  we  could  we  soothed  him.  His  sobs  over  the 
ill-treated  Columbus  grew  fewer,  and  at  last  he 
lay  asleep,  great  tear-drops  gemming  his  lashes 
as  he  slept  a  sweet  sleep  as  if  of  childhood, 
tousled  locks  spreading  in  care-free  fashion  over 
a  tear-wet  pillow  just  beneath  another  lithograph 
entitled,  "  Learning  Baby  to  Dance." 

There  's  the  great  trouble  with  these  bone-dry 
towns  like  Washington  and  Charleston  and  Ban- 
gor ;  a  lot  of  the  folks  take  to  drink. 

For  a  long  time  I  lay  awake  in  the  basement 
darkness  of  the  bedroom  bar,  thinking  about  the 
new  wonders  of  this  war-born  Washington.  Too 
long  it  had  been  merely  the  mecca  of  brides  and 
grooms  and  job-hunters.  To  the  whole  people, 
for  more  than  a  century,  it  had  been  simply  a 

49 


THE  WAK-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

seat  of  government.  And  now  in  a  day  it  had 
become,  now  and  forever,  not  a  mere  interesting 
real-estate  site  upon  which  by  chance  had  been 
piled  enough  freestone  and  marble  to  house  the 
seat  of  government,  but  the  capital  of  the  whole 
nation. 

And  as  I  thought  this  wondrous  new-born 
capital  over,  I  began  to  feel  a  bit  sorry  that  I 
had  taken  the  wife  with  me  to  view  it.  The 
wife  is  so  irreverent  —  and  everything.  She  has 
a  pesky  habit  of  knowing  what  she  likes  and 
saying  so  out  loud.  Now  I,  like  all  the  rest  of 
the  hundred  million  except  the  wife,  believe  that 
everybody  running  the  war  is  a  great  statesman, 
general,  executive,  even  if  he  is  n't,  for  that 's 
patriotism;  but  the  wife!  Even  the  short 
glimpse  she  had  had  that  day,  before  starting  for 
Baltimore,  of  the  new  Washington  at  war  had 
caused  her  to  say  things  that  made  me  blush  for 
her.  Her  caustic  comments  on  the  most  trifling 
things  gave  me  deep  distress.  The  weird  and 
unauthorized  fur  collars  fastened  to  the  sup- 
posed-to-be uniform  overcoats  of  the  newly 
created  officers  of  the  very  new  army;  glinting 
spurs  attached  to  the  boots  of  right-off-the-shelf 
lieutenants  in  the  aviation  service  —  she  stormed 

50 


BOOMS,  RUM  AND  RUCTIONS 

because  the  very  best  that  the  foremost  poster 
draftsman  of  the  whole  country  could  turn  out 
were  lithographs  which  in  thought  and  composi- 
tion and  general  technic  climbed  to  the  sublime 
intellectual  heights  of  a  peaches-and-creamy  show 
girl,  garbed  variously  in  the  third-act  clothes  of 
Columbia  or  in  the  uniform  of  a  blue-jacket,  who 
seemed  to  be  calling  out  coquettishly,  above  the 
gun-throbs  and  the  groans  of  the  greatest  of 
world  tragedies,  "  O  Fellahs,  Ain't  You  The 
Mean  Things !  Enlist  To-day,  Dearie ! " 
Heavens!  how  I  dreaded  what  she  would  say, 
once  we  had  penetrated  further  and  had  begun 
to  stumble  into  the  tangles  of  red-tape,  the  petty 
party  politics  and  a  general  scheme  of  war  pro- 
gram teeming  with  all  that  unity  so  noticeable 
whenever  a  Kansas  tornado  hits  a  Saturday 
night  performance  of  the  circus. 

It 's  impossible  to  convince  the  wife  that  the 
truly  patriotic  should  sit  tight  and  say  nothing 
when,  to  take  an  example,  the  Government  insists 
upon  saying,  "  Is  this  potential  appointee  the 
best  Democrat  (or  Republican,  as  the  case  may 
be,  and  in  former  wars  often  was)  to  handle  this 
big  war  job?"  instead  of  simply  asking,  "Is  he 
the  best  man  to  handle  this  big  war  job?" 

51 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

Again  and  again  I  've  told  the  wife  that  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  given  Democrat,  instead  of  a  given 
man,  will  at  its  worst  merely  result,  say,  iu  the 
unnecessary  deaths,  perhaps,  of  a  few  thousand 
young  men  in  army  camps  or  at  the  front.  I 
try  to  show  her  that  if  nobody  tries  to  right 
existing  wrongs,  the  war  may  be  prolonged,  but 
in  the  meantime  everybody  will  enjoy  the  sub- 
lime ethical  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  he  and 
all  his  compatriots  have  been  intensely  patri- 
otic. "  Pooh !  "  says  the  wife.  "  The  trouble 
with  you  and  the  rest  of  the  patriots  of  Bro- 
midia  is  that  you  confuse  criticism  of  a  stuffed 
shirt  in  office  with  the  office  itself.  If  the  people 

of  New  York  impeach  a  governor  and  kick  him 

i 
out,  how  can  such  action  be  construed  as  even 

remotely  a  reflection  upon  the  great  office  of 
Governor  of  New  York?  " 

She 's  hopeless.  I  don't  go  so  far,  of  course,  as 
to  carry  these  ideas  of  patriotic  silence  into  my 
wool-sponging  business  in  lower  Broadway; 
none  of  my  fellow-patriots  does,  because  that 's 
an  entirely  different  matter,  into  which  patriot- 
ism does  n't  enter.  Or  when  I  go  to  a  ball-game 
at  the  Polo  Grounds  in  New  York  with  the  rest 
of  the  fans  on  a  Saturday  afternoon.  If  I  see 

52 


BOOMS,  RUM  AND  RUCTIONS 

the  shortstop  repeatedly  come  close  to  losing  the 
game  by  booting  the  ball  all  over  the  infield,  I 
just  climb  right  upon  my  hind  legs  back  of  third 
base  and  start  the  yell,  "  Take  him  out !  Kill 
'im ! " 

Doubtless,  if  the  great  managerial  base- 
ballist,  Mr.  John  McGraw,  should  insist,  day  in 
and  day  out,  upon  retaining  a  player  who  per- 
sistently impeded  the  pennant  progress  of  my 
beloved  Giants  by  booting  the  ball  from  Satur- 
day to  Monday  to  Saturday,  I  'd  be  ready  to  head 
a  committee  that  would  lock  up  Mr.  McGraw 
forever  and  then  throw  the  key  away.  Such 
extreme  measures  would  undoubtedly  bring 
down  upon  my  head  accusations  of  a  disgraceful 
lack  of  loyalty  toward  the  revered  Giants,  but 
the  measures  would  go  a  long  way  toward  win- 
ning the  pennant. 

The  wife  not  only  agrees  with  me  in  such  mat- 
ters as  keeping  office  politics  out  of  my  wool- 
sponging  business,  or  in  my  outspoken  criticism 
around  the  house  when  we  get  a  cook  that  can't 
cook,  in  all  these  little  ideas  that  have  to  do  with 
efficiency  in  our  own  small  systems  of  domestic, 
business,  and  social  economics;  but  she  also, 
alas !  goes  to  the  extreme  of  standing  right  up  in 

53 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

meeting  and  insisting  that  even  the  Government 
of  the  United  States,  from  the  President  down, 
in  war-time  should  cut  out  office  politics,  ineffi- 
ciency, red-tape.  And  I  tell  her,  everybody  we 
know  tells  her  (everybody,  at  least,  among  our 
patriotic  friends  who  still  speaks  to  her)  that 
she 's  no  true  American  and  ought  to  be  ashamed 
of  herself. 

The  important  matter  of  the  price  of  prunes 
in  a  Pennsylvania  Avenue  hotel  restaurant, 
where  we  breakfasted  after  our  all-night  Auto- 
To-Hire  search  for  a  room,  started  the  wife  off 
on  one  of  her  distressingly  unpatriotic  tantrums. 
The  hotel  management,  in  a  noble  effort  to  help 
win  the  war  by  conserving  food,  charged  the  wife 
and  me  five  cents  a  prune,  five  prunes  in  a  saucer, 
at  twenty-five  cents  per  prune  order,  or  fifty 
cents  for  our  total  of  ten  prunes.  I  was  morti- 
fied to  death  the  way  she  went  on. 

"  Waiter,"  she  said  with  cold  finality,  as  if 
the  poor  waiter  were  to  blame, — "  Waiter,  I 
have  only  this  to  say :  You  may  report  back  to 
your  chief,  with  my  compliments,  that  I  said  in 
passing  that  even  if  Jess  himself  is  the  Willard 
that  owns  this  hotel,  he  could  n't  CARRY  fifty 
cents'  worth  of  prunes !  " 

54 


ROOMS,  HUM  AND  RUCTIONS 

Now  as  I  lay  awake  in  the  darkness  of  my 
bedroom  bar  and  recalled  all  she  had  said  at  that 
breakfast-table,  I  tried  to  excuse  her  on  the 
ground  that  a  more  or  less  sleepless  night  in  the 
good  shij?  Auto-To-Hire  had  caused  her  to  go  to 
irritating  extremes.  Whatever  the  cause,  once 
the  wife  had  disposed  of  the  prune  incident,  she 
had  rambled  on,  I  remembered  sleepily,  with  an 
unpatriotic  harangue  that  was  most  obnoxious. 
The  very  head-lines  on  the  Washington  morning 
papers,  lying  face-up  beside  our  plates,  had 
seemed  to  goad  her  on.  Why  this?  Why  that? 
I  recalled  that  I  had  blushed  crimson  while  she 
raved. 

"  Shucks !  Starting  out  to  capture  Berlin, 
and  the  whole  darn  country  can't  dish  up  enough 
unity  of  action  in  two  weeks  of  effort  to  carry 
one  quart  of  coal  three  quarters  of  a  mile  across 
the  Hudson  River  to  our  flat.  Oh,  hush  your- 
self !  I  could  see  the  loaded  coal -cars,  I  tell  you, 
on  the  Jersey  side  of  the  river  from  the  windows 
of  pa's  apartment  on  the  drive.  Lookit  this 
newspaper  head-line  here :  '  Mrs.  Macgilli- 
cuddys-Reeks,  Sinn  Fein  Leader,  Received  At 
White  House.'  Sickening!  This  is  a  fine  time 
for  the  President  to  encourage  German  propa- 

55 


THE  WAK-WHIBL  IN  WASHINGTON 

ganda  by  —  o-o-o-o-oh,  I  —  will  —  not  —  hush 
—  up!  This  Sinn  Fein  person  is  violently  pro- 
German;  says  so  in  effect  from  platforms;  so 
are  all  her  little  group  of  co-workers.  I  'd  like 
to  see  her  and  her  crowd  ring  the  door-bell  down 
at  Oyster  Bay,  that 's  all !  They  have  the  impu- 
dence to  stand  up  in  halls  paid  for  out  of  Ger- 
man funds,  admission  free,  in  New  York,  Mil- 
waukee, Chicago,  everywhere,  with  a  lot  of  Ger- 
mans filling  the  front  seats,  and  the  whole  crowd, 
even  while  our  boys  are  fighting  Germany  in 
France,  cheering  wildly  every  time  a  speaker 
tells  of  German  victories.  Less  than  a  month 
ago  this  same  woman  who  was  *  received  at  the 
White  House '  yesterday  was  the  star  speaker  at 
a  pro-German  meeting  in  Terrace  Garden,  back 
home,  where  a  country-woman  of  hers  had  girls 
pass  the  hat  through  the  aisles  for  '  silver  bul- 
lets,' as  she  called  the  collection,  to  be  fired 
against  our  most  powerful  ally.  They  want  our 
biggest  ally  crushed,  smashed  by  Germany, 
which  means  that  our  American  boys  fighting 
beside  the  Tommies  would  have  to  be  smashed, 
too;  leaving  us,  with  England  gone,  to  fight  it 
out  with  Germany  and  her  allies  single-handed, 
or  be  crushed  and  smashed  ourselves." 

56 


BOOMS,  BUM  AND  RUCTIONS 

The  wife  was  going  on  strenuously,  even  for 
her.  All  that  she  said  was  true,  for  together  we 
had  gone,  out  of  curiosity,  to  their  meetings. 
Nevertheless,  at  the  breakfast-table  I  had  felt 
that  it  was  frightful  taste  to  criticize  the  Presi- 
dent himself  this  way  for  making  a  formal  fuss 
over  the  pro-German  Sinn  Fein  leader.  The 
wife,  being  a  mere  woman,  did  n't  stop  to  think 
that  the  administration  doubtless  had  had  some 
excellent  reason  for  its  semi-official  recognition 
of  a  dangerous  enemy  group  which,  backed  by 
Germany,  constantly  seeks  to  cripple  our  great- 
est ally.  I  had  managed,  I  remember,  to  wedge 
in  a  word  to  the  effect  that  maybe  the  administra- 
tion, in  its  wisdom,  had  merely  received  the  Sinn 
Fein  leader  in  order  to  proffer  thereby  a  tiny  bit 
of  flattery  to  a  more  or  less  imaginary  vote, 
which  might  help  the  party  at  the  next  congres- 
sional elections.  The  wife  exploded. 

"  Votes !  Ugh  again !  Flatter  a  crowd  that 
jumped  up  with  cheers  —  you  were  there  and 
heard  'em,  too  —  right  in  Carnegie  Hall,  weeks 
after  we  had  gone  to  war,  at  the  mere  mention 
of  German  successes  over  England,  and  with  a 
Justice  of  the  New  York  Supreme  Court,  born 
in  Middletown,  New  York, —  greatest  Irish 

57 


THE  WAK-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

liberator  ever  born  in  Orange  County,  I  call  him, 
—  presiding  on  the  stage  as  chairman  and  never 
so  much  as  reproving  them.  Let  'em  work  with 
Germany  and  start  their  uprisings  at  home  if 
they  think  they  'd  rather  have  a  Prussian  prince- 
ling as  their  lord  lieutenant  than  a  Britisher; 
that 's  their  own  affair.  Whether  they  know  it 
or  not,  they  're  striking  the  high  spots  in  a  Ger- 
man propaganda  in  America  that  was  started 
when  Prince  Henry  of  Prussia  came  right  here 
to  plant  a  tree  down  at  Mount  Vernon,  the  prince 
sticking  round  long  enough  to  plant  a  whole  lot 
of  other  things  also.  The  New  York  police  had 
to  chase  the  whole  caboodle  of  'em  off  their  soap- 
boxes in  Herald  Square  months  after  we  'd  gone 
to  war.  Now  their  German  backers  will  chuckle 
out  loud,  and  the  whole  troupe  will  start  in  with 
new  courage,  on  the  strength  of  the  fact  that  the 
White  House  has  made  a  fuss  over  their  prima 
donna.  If  I  were  President,  I  'd  tell  the  whole 
impudent  crew  to  skedaddle  back  to  the  country 
they  refuse  to  live  in,  but  which  evidently  means 
a  whole  lot  more  to  them  than  America  does  — 
that,  or  to  stop  kicking  up  a  sentimental  uproar 
around  here  that  doesn't  concern  us  and  only 
impedes  our  own  important  war  business. 

58 


ROOMS,  RUM  AND  RUCTIONS 

" '  Shortage  In  Motor-Trucks  For  Army.' 
Lookit  that  head-line!  And  you  know  as  well 
as  I  do  what  happened  in  this  very  town  of 
Washington  when  our  Cousin  Ed  came  down 
here  months  ago  in  the  interest  of  the  Mac  Motor- 
Truck,  or  whatever  the  name  of  the  firm  is  he 's 
with  now.  Forgotten  it?  Well,  you  just  listen. 
Our  Ed  went  to  the  general,  or  whatever  you  go 
to  here,  and  said  his  firm  wanted  to  get  the 
merits  of  their  truck  before  the  army  authorities. 
And  what  did  this  general,  or  whoever  the  army 
truck  man  was,  tell  him?  That  the  army 
couldn't  even  consider  Ed's  truck.  'And  why 
not? '  our  Ed  asked,  knowing  that  his  truck  ad- 
mittedly was  one  of  the  best  on  the  market. 
1  Because  your  truck  is  n't  listed  with  us,  and 
the  department  does  n't  permit  firms  to  bid  on 
truck  contracts  unless  they  're  on  our  list.' 
i  And  how  does  a  firm  get  its  truck  listed,  Gen- 
eral? '  '  Why,'  this  General  said  to  our  Ed, '  you 
have  to  take  one  of  your  stock  trucks  all  the  way 
down  to  the  testing-ground  in  Texas  and  run  it 
two  thousand  miles  under  certain  specified  con- 
ditions. Then  if  a  test  shows  it 's  up  to  the  re- 
quirements, your  truck  will  be  listed.'  t  Easy, 
General,'  our  Ed  says.  *  My  firm  '11  have  as 

59 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

many  stock  trucks  as  the  army  wants  shipped 
right  down  to  Texas  for  the  try-out.  We  '11  run 
'em  to  Texas  under  their  own  power,  if  you  'd 
prefer.'  '  But  that  would  n't  help  any  toward 
getting  your  truck  listed,'  says  the  general  to  our 
Ed.  '  And  why  not?  '  our  Ed  asked.  '  Because,' 
answers  the  general,  opening  the  door  for  our 
Ed  to  pass  out, —  and  listen  to  this  answer, 
dearie ;  it 's  epic, — '  Because,'  the  general  said 
to  our  Ed,  '  the  department  decided  a  long  time 
ago  not  to  increase  the  list.' 

"  *  Shortage  In  Motor-Trucks  For  Army/ 
that 's  what  it  says  in  the  paper  here  this  morn- 
ing. Whoopee ! " 

Thus  her  harangue,  a  steady  stream  of  lan- 
guage so  closely  approaching  sedition  that  I  was 
more  than  half  tempted  to  leave  her  indignantly. 
What  was  a  mere  sufficiency  of  army  trucks  in 
comparison  to  the  sublime  feeling  (thus  I 
thought  as  I  dozed  off  into  the  beginning  of  my 
bar-bedroom  slumbers)  that  had  filled  me,  sit- 
ting there  at  the  hotel  breakfast-table,  with  the 
realization  that  it  is  far  more  beautifully  patri- 
otic to  be  without  any  trucks  than  to  attempt,  in 
the  bold  way  the  wife  has  of  doing,  unpatrioti- 
cally  to  goad  the  Government  to  the  embarrass- 
.  60 


ROOMS,  RUM  AND  RUCTIONS 

ing  position  of  trying  to  get  some  trucks.  Of 
course,  if  I  positively  had  to  have  such  things  as 
a  lot  of  army  trucks  in  my  own  business  or  close 
up  my  wool-sponging  plant ;  and  if  this  general, 
whoever  he  was,  while  working  for  our  firm 
showed  the  door  to  anybody  like  the  wife's 
Cousin  Ed  at  a  time  when  a  sudden  business 
rush  had  sent  us  hunting  high  and  low  for 
trucks;  and  if  one  of  our  managers  knew  what 
the  general  had  done  and  did  n't  kick  to  the  firm 
about  it,  well,  in  a  private  case  like  that  I 
should  n't  do  anything  to  the  general  and  the 
manager,  once  I  had  learned  the  truth,  but  open 
our  office  window  and  drop  both  of  them  eight 
floors  to  the  sidewalk  of  lower  Broadway,  pray- 
ing in  the  meantime  that  they  'd  both  land  on 
some  vital  anatomical  spot  and  not  on  their 
heads.  Applying  such  principles  to  a  war- 
whirling  Washington,  however,  is  something  else 
again.  Be  loyal.  I  'm  with  the  crowd  on  that 
slogan. 

And  just  before  I  tumbled  all  the  way  into 
sleep  I  breathed  a  final  prayer  that  we  never 
would  find  a  room  and  bath  in  Washington. 
Then,  said  I  to  myself,  I  can  decently  send  the 
wife  back  home,  leaving  me  free  to  dig,  patrioti- 

61 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

cally  and  alone,  through  the  cuticle  of  war-time 
Washington,  looking  the  whole  works  over  in  an 
unprejudiced  way  without  the  distraction  and 
distress  of  the  wife's  daily  harangue  about  things 
as  they  are.  I  'd  willingly  sleep  every  night  in 
the  bar-room,  sleep  ten  nights  in  a  bar-room,  if 
thereby  I  'd  get  a  chance  to  look  things  over  un- 
interruptedly. 

If  the  worst  came  to  the  worst,  if  it  were  pos- 
sible to  get  rooms  in  Washington  for  the  wife 
and  me,  then  (so  I  firmly  resolved,  just  before  I 
lost  consciousness)  I'd  put  in  an  entire  day 
showing  the  wife  one  phase  of  Washington  life 
of  a  dignity  so  sublime,  so  unselfishly  patriotic, 
and  at  the  same  time  so  efficient  and  intel- 
lectually high-minded  and  awe-inspiring,  that 
even  she  would  come  from  the  scene  with  eyes 
alight  and  a  voice  resonantly  emotional  as  she 
spoke  her  acclaim.  I  'd  take  her  to  see  Congress ! 


62 


CHAPTER  III 

WATER,   WATER   EVERYWHERE,   BUT  NOT  A 
SINGLE  DRINK 

TAKE  a  fountain-pen,  not  any  particular 
kind  of  fountain-pen,  but  just  one  of  these 
ordinary  first-class  pens  that  leaks, —  and  thus 
equipped,  one  will  find  that  in  any  dry  and  un- 
fermented  city  such  as  Washington  is  in  war- 
times the  pen  can  be  adapted  to  new  uses  which 
makes  it  one  of  the  great  life-saving  engines  of 
modern  war. 

The  possibilities  of  the  fountain-pen  in  these 
troublous  days  were  demonstrated  to  me  repeat- 
edly during  a  long  forenoon  and  afternoon  in 
war-crowded  Washington  while  I  was  awaiting 
the  return  of  the  wife  from  Baltimore.  I  arose 
after  a  night  of  more  or  less  sleep  in  my  pet 
abandoned  bar-room  in  the  Fourteenth  Street 
hotel,  and  learned  the  astounding  news  that  we 
could  have  a  room  and  bath  in  that  same  hotel 
later  in  the  day.  An  aged  retired  army  officer, 

63 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

it  seems,  who  had  lived  in  the  hotel  for  years 
and  had  tried  to  stick  it  out  even  after  Wash- 
ington had  gone  dry,  finally  decided  to  give  up 
the  fight  against  frightful  odds.  The  last  of  his 
own  little  private  stock  had  begun  to  peter  out, 
and  he  was  in  his  ninety-first  year  and  rheu- 
matic, and  therefore  could  not  journey  back  and 
forth  on  the  Washington-Baltimore  Liquor 
Local  to  procure  the  stimulants  so  necessary  to 
one  of  his  years,  and  he  was  afraid  of  the  Wash- 
ington drinking  water.  In  recent  days  his 
thoughts  had  turned  often  and  oftener  to  the  old 
homestead,  which  was  in  some  place  out  on  the 
rolling  prairies  within  sight  and  sound  of  the 
quaint  old  church  spires  and  distilleries  of  his 
native  Peoria;  and  so  at  last  he  had  decided  to 
call  an  ambulance  to  the  hotel  door  and  start 
back  to  Illinois  to  grow  to  an  old  age  of  full, 
mellow  beauty. 

The  room  clerk  had  told  me  these  details  early, 
so  that  I  might  have  first  grab  at  the  vacant  room. 
While  dressing  I  had  decided  that  perhaps  if  a 
Washington  room  clerk  were  approached  in  the 
right  way,  he  might  be  induced  to  accept  a  ten- 
buck  bill  as  a  slight  token  of  esteem.  In  a  wide 
range  of  travel  over  the  country  I  never  had  un- 

64 


WATER,  WATER  EVERYWHERE 

covered  a  hotel  clerk  who  felt  the  need  of  a  tip  to 
urge  him  on  to  take  an  interest  in  his  art,  but 
perhaps,  so  I  mused  while  dressing  —  perhaps 
the  phenomenal  conditions  of  a  war-time  Wash- 
ington would  cause  a  clerk  to  break  the  rule. 
Said  conditions,  or  something,  would  and  did 
not  only  in  that  hotel,  but  even  back  of  the  desks 
of  some  of  Washington's  hostelries  that  have  a 
national  reputation.  There 's  a  fact  which 
prospective  visitors  may  well  remember  while 
the  big  crush  lasts. 

Joyfully  I  set  about  the  task  of  telephoning 
the  wife  the  glad  news  that  the  venerable  army 
officer  was  on  his  way  to  grow  old  beautifully 
among  his  old  home  distilleries.  A  simple  job 
it  seemed,  this  matter  of  merely  entering  a  tele- 
phone-booth in  the  hotel  lobby  and  asking  to  be 
put  through  to  the  Baltimore  Y.  W.  C.  A.  and 
then  telling  the  wife  to  hurry  over  to  Washing- 
ton. So  is  raising  the  Titanic  simple.  For  al- 
most half  an  hour  I  waited  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  hotel  telephone-booths,  all  of  which  hap- 
pened to  be  occupied,  in  the  hope  that  at  least  one 
of  the  patient  folk  trying  to  get  a  local  number 
would  crack  under  the  strain  and  quit.  Then  I 
remembered  that  one  man  in  Washington  re- 

65 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

cently  had  hung  up  a  record  by  spending  almost 
three  hours  in  a  telephone-booth  while  trying  to 
get  the  more  or  less  well-known  War  Depart- 
ment. I  strolled  down  the  street  and  prevailed 
upon  the  hello  girl  in  a  Pennsylvania  Avenue 
hotel  to  begin  the  preliminaries  of  trying  to  get 
the  local  exchange  to  call  up  Baltimore.  And 
then  I  sauntered  forth  to  see  the  town,  first 
leaving  my  name  and  address  and  telephone  num- 
ber with  the  hello  girl  in  case  anything  ever 
should  come  of  the  Baltimore  call. 

For,  being  temporarily  a  widower,  here  was  a 
splendid  chance,  perhaps  the  only  one  I  should 
have,  to  peer  into  the  workings  of  the  excise  dry 
laws  in  the  new  war  capital  of  the  world.  And 
so  it  was  that  I  came  upon  the  possibilities  of 
the  fountain-pen,  its  moral  and  mental  and  phy- 
sical attributes  as  a  war  necessity. 

He  —  the  unconscious  demonstrator  of  the 
versatility  of  the  fountain-pen  —  was  in  a  man- 
ner of  speaking  standing  against  the  worn,  but 
beautiful,  mahogany  of  a  bar-room  celebrated 
for  generations  in  Washington  song  and  story. 
He  was  swaying  gently,  like  a  dew-gemmed  lily 
nodding  impersonally  in  the  glorious  zephyrs  of 
a  morning  in  the  springtime.  He  was,  in  fact, 

66 


WATER,  WATER  EVERYWHERE 

by  way  of  being  lightly  stewed.  A  squat  bottle 
that  decorated  the  mahogany  in  front  of  him 
contained  one  of  those  non-alcoholic  concoctions 
which  looks  like  beer,  smells  like  beer,  and  tastes 
like  beer,  but  of  which  it  has  been  truly  said 
that,  once  a  thirsty  soul  has  tucked  even  a 
quart  or  two  of  it  within  him,  it  "  lacks  the  au- 
thority." It  is  an  amber  mixture  wearing  a 
collar  of  foam  and  called  "  Peevo  "  or  some  such 
name. 

At  a  far  end  of  what  for  generations  had  been 
a  practical  bar  now  stood  dreamily  a  weighty 
bartender  who  seemed  to  have  a  great  secret  sor- 
row, his  back  to  the  myriad  conglomeration  of 
ancient  prints,  dingy  medals,  and  badges  of  his- 
toric interest  that  littered  the  wall,  dusty  relics 
of  great  Washingtonians,  all  of  a  cobwebby  dry- 
ness  in  keeping  with  the  total  absence  of  humid- 
ity that  prevailed.  His  head  was  bowed,  and 
his  mind  was  back,  back,  back  amid  the  memories 
of  the  great  days  that  were.  With  the  exception 
of  the  swaying  fountain-pen  demonstrator,  there 
was  no  human  impediment  in  a  path  leading 
from  the  street  door  to  any  point  along  the  bar, 
whereas  the  last  time  I  had  been  in  that  par- 
ticularly historic  place  T  had  been  compelled  to 

67 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

bat  my  way  through  a  transient  population  of 
Washington  which  had  come  to  town  to  see  the 
first  inauguration  of  President  Wilson.  And  on 
that  previous  visit,  so  I  now  recalled,  even  after 
I  had  kicked  and  punched  a  passage  all  the  way 
from  the  street  curb  indoors  to  the  mahogany 
and  brass  foot-rail,  this  same  bartender  had 
utterly  ignored  my  simple  order,  doubtless  be- 
cause we  had  n't  been  properly  introduced.  But 
now !  Well,  now  he  all  but  kissed  me ;  and  in  a 
manner  that  was  pathos  itself  he  arranged  most 
temptingly  his  little  stock  of  Peevo  and  Wishee- 
Washo  and  the  rest  of  the  fair,  but  false,  bottled 
goods  which  a  theoretically  dry  Washington  now 
permits  the  totally  dry  bar-rooms  to  sell.  On  the 
bar  beside  his  pathetic  little  stock  he  placed  bot- 
tles of  catsup,  Worcestershire  sauce,  paprika, 
black  pepper,  horse-radish,  rock  salt,  vinegar, 
and  the  other  ingredients  which  a  desperate 
Washington  has  been  known  to  mix  together  of 
late  into  a  sort  of  non-explosive  TNT  and  dump 
into  a  glass  of  Wishee-Washo  to  give  the  bever- 
age some  semblance  of  the  old-time  kick. 

I  had  selected  a  bottle  of  the  Wishee-Washo, 
which  wholly  lacked  authority,  and  was  idly 
sipping  the  amber  inanity  when  the  gentleman 

68 


of  the  fountain-pen  or  pens  began  to  make  a  fuss 
over  me.  Our  friendship  took  a  long  leap  for- 
ward as  he  confided  to  me  that  once  upon  a  time, 
back  in  the  days  of  the  Hudson-Fulton  celebra- 
tion in  New  York,  he  had  spent  almost  a  whole 
week  in  my  home  town  of  Manhattan,  during  the 
course  of  which,  believe  it  or  not,  he  had  actually 
been  in  the  same  street,  Broadway,  where  my 
wool-sponging  business  is  located. 

"  Well,  well,  well,  it 's  a  small  world,  after 
all ! "  I  cried  in  amazement.  I  had  seized  for 
quotation  upon  the  best  line  in  Charles  Hanson 
Towne's  "  Ain't  Nature  Wonderful "  because  of 
its  appropriateness,  intoning  it  with  as  much  en- 
thusiasm as  I  might  have  done  were  the  lines 
my  own  instead  of  Mr.  Towne's.  It  was  quite 
evident  that  the  felicity  of  the  line  had  impressed 
my  new  friend,  for  in  the  midst  of  his  pendulum- 
like  swayings  back  and  forth  he  watched  his 
chance  until  one  of  his  sways  brought  his  lips 
close  to  my  ear.  And  all  this  time,  remember,  I 
was  certain  that  the  beverage  he  was  quaffing  was 
non-alcoholic.  Thereupon  he  buttonholed  me 
with  the  only  hand  he  had  left  which  was  not 
occupied  with  a  tight  grip  on  the  bar,  and  he 
whispered  to  me  to  come  to  the  farthest  end  of 

69 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

the  bar,  where  the  sadly  ruminating  bar-keep' 
could  not  hear  him.  He  opened  his  coat  then 
cautiously. 

Jutting  up  row  on  row  from  every  waistcoat 
pocket  were  countless  fountain-pens.  From 
cravat  to  belt-line  he  looked  like  a  pipe-organ. 
Each  of  the  pens,  I  noticed,  was  fitted  out  with 
one  of  those  little  nickel  contrivances  which, 
when  moved  in  one  direction,  sucks  up  enough 
ink  immediately  to  fill  the  barrel  of  the  pen,  or, 
when  moved  the  other  way,  almost  instantly 
causes  all  the  ink  in  the  barrel  to  spurt  back  into 
the  ink-bottle. 

"  There 's  no  kick  in  this  Peevo  stuff,  is  there, 
Friend?  "  he  whispered.  "  Friend,  I  leave  it  to 
you,  as  man  to  man,  am  I  right  or  am  I  wrong? 
Now  gimme  little  -tention.  You  pour  out  your 
glass  of  Peevo  or  Wishee-Washo  —  so;  then  you 
take  out  man's  sized  fountain-pen  and  work 
metal  thingamajig  so,  and  out  squirts  whole  pen- 
ful  of  lovely  pure  alcohol  into  glass  of  Peevo. 
What 's  result,  Friend?  Result 's  a  glass  of  the 
brew,  real  stuff,  that 's  got  more  kick  in  it  than 
all  stuff  Mr.  Schlitz,  Pabst,  Lemp,  'n'  Busch 
could  cook  up  working  together.  As  man  to 
man,  am  I  right  or  am  I  wrong?  " 

70 


He  was  right.  For  a  long  time  we  talked 
sadly  of  the  mighty  changes  brought  about  by 
the  new  order  of  things;  of  the  vacuity  of  the 
corner  bar  of  the  Ebbitt,  where  the  army  and 
navy  forever  had  been  wont  to  fight  all  the  bat- 
tles of  all  history  across  the  mahogany,  but  now, 
alas!  given  over  to  rows  of  pop  bottles  and  alto- 
gether as  festive  and  riotous  as  the  octogenarian 
reading-room  of  the  Century  Club  in  New  York 
on  a  rainy  Tuesday  morning;  of  the  once  delec- 
table Shoemaker's,  down  in  "  the  avenue,"  where 
pyramids  of  empty  old  wine-cases,  kegs,  barrels, 
brave  with  printed  legions  of  one-time  contents, 
but  now  a  mass  of  lies,  lies,  lies,  still  line  the 
walls  —  kegs  of  air  as  useful  as  discarded  pea- 
nut-husks, and  as  tempting,  but  persisting  in  lit- 
tering the  floor  of  the  ex-bar  in  a  shameless  dis- 
play that  but  adds  insult  to  injury.  A  sorrow's 
crown  of  sorrows,  fond  mem'ries  bring  to  light, 
—  gone  are  the  days, —  banquet-hall  deserted! 
In  the  midst  of  life  we  are  in  drought. 

Out  of  my  reveries  I  was  started  by  the  voice 
of  my  friend  of  the  fountain-pens.  He  was 
speaking  in  tones  thick  with  emotion. 

"  Thazza  las'  penful!"  Carefully  and 
thoughtfully  he  was  planning  to  turn  himself  a 

71 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

shade  more  than  ninety  degrees  and  face  the 
street  door  a  few  feet  away.  Without  the  aid  of 
a  rudder  he  made  the  distance,  but  as  he  reached 
for  the  knob  he  paused  and  pressed  his  brow 
against  the  door-post,  and  his  frame  began  to 
shake  with  sobs.  "Injustice!"  he  apostro- 
phized. "  Nuthin'  so  maddening 's  injustice. 
Betcha  million  dollars  first  thing  I  get  home 
she  '11  say  I  been  drinking ! "  Then  he  crashed 
out. 

It  is  well  that  a  wise  administration  of  district 
excise  matters  has  seen  to  it  that  (a)  one  must 
have  a  prescription  signed  by  a  physician  living 
in  Washington  before  any  druggist  in  the  capi- 
tal will  so  much  as  consider  a  request  for  a  bit 
of  alcohol,  and  (b)  that  one  cannot  get  the  grain 
alcohol  even  then,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  in- 
ternal revenue  folk,  for  months  following  the 
lowering  of  the  Washington  lid,  held  up  the  de- 
livery of  alcohol  to  the  druggists.  I  know  these 
things  to  be  true,  because  once  I  had  learned 
from  my  friend  of  the  fountain-pens  how  far 
even  one  fountain-pen  could  go  toward  changing 
the  entire  career  of  a  glass  of  Wishee-Washo,  I 
rushed  off  to  the  nearest  drug-shop  and  tried  to 
trap  the  druggist  into  selling  me  a  gallon  or  so 

72 


of  grain  alcohol.  I  just  wanted  to  trap  one  of 
these  smart  Aleck  druggist  chaps,  that 's  all,  and 
then  see  to  it  that  the  scoundrel  was  punished  to 
the  full  extent  of  the  law.  But,  so  help  me,  from 
one  end  of  the  town  to  the  other  I  could  n't  find 
a  doggoned,  dodgasted  druggist  who  would  sell 
me  enough  to  fill  one  pen,  even  though  I  pleaded 
for  almost  an  hour  with  one  druggist  who  I 
thought  was  a  friend  of  mine,  who  was  until  he 
refused  to  do  me  even  so  slight  a  favor  as  to  sell 
me  a  stingy  little  penful. 

From  time  to  time  between  visits  to  the  drug- 
shops  I  dropped  in  to  ask  the  hotel  hello  girl  oc- 
casionally whether  or  not  the  Washington  tele- 
phone exchange  persons  had  yet  seen  their  way 
clear  to  take  up  the  matter  of  getting  the  wife 
to  come  to  a  Baltimore  end  of  the  wire.  On  one 
of  these  visits,  made  shortly  after  the  noon  hour, 
I  received  authoritative  information  that  the 
matter  certainly  would  be  taken  up  by  the  day 
shift  of  operators  during  the  afternoon,  or  by 
the  night  shift  at  the  latest.  Thus  reassured,  I 
wandered  forth  again  to  look  into  the  drink  evil 
as  influenced  by  the  prohibition  law.  Just  for 
my  own  satisfaction  I  wanted  to  learn  at  first 
hand  whether  the  new  excise  law  in  Washington 

73 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

was  as  effective,  say,  as  I  had  found  the  same 
sort  of  law  to  be  when,  one  hot  and  thirst -pro- 
voking day  the  summer  before,  I  had  investigated 
thoroughly  the  working  of  the  dry  law  in  the 
prohibition  town  of  Bangor,  Maine.  It  was  just 
as  effective. 

I  confess  that  I  had  arrived  in  Washington 
fearful  that  my  old  friend  and  boon  companion 
of  other  days,  the  Rev.  Billy  Sunday,  who  had 
come  to  the  capital  just  ahead  of  me  to  save  it, 
would  suffer  the  embarrassment  of  finding  Wash- 
ington so  free  of  hard  liquor  that  his  work  would 
be  half  done  before  he  could  even  start  in  to  do  it 
himself.  Knowing  Bill  as  I  do,  I  grieved  to 
think  that  he  would  have  to  suffer  the  humilia- 
tion of  facing  great  throngs  already  largely  re- 
formed. A  fine  situation  that  for  Bill  to  find 
himself  in!  And  there  were  other  things  that 
troubled  me,  too,  deplorable  results  which  it 
seemed  to  me  would  inevitably  float  in  the  water 
wake  of  the  district's  new  prohibition  measures. 
There  was  the  matter,  for  instance,  of  the  sudden 
compulsory  lack  of  elbow  exercise  among  the 
officers  of  the  Army  and  Navy  Club  and  of  the 
mighty  statesmen  who  gather  in  the  one-time 
wet-goods  department  of  the  Metropolitan  Club. 

74 


WATER,  WATER  EVERYWHERE 

The  sudden  surcease  of  cocktails,  I  feared,  would 
cause  the  serious  muscular  atrophy  of  arms  right 
and  left,  especially  of  good  right  arms  now  so 
much  needed  to  win  the  war.  Also,  how  about 
the  social  affairs  that  are  a  necessary  part  of  a 
national  capital's  interrelations  with  the  or- 
dained representatives  of  the  other  peoples  of 
the  world?  Had  the  new  dry  state  of  affairs 
brought  Washington  social  happenings  to  the 
drab  dreariness  of  the  grape  juice  carousals 
which  once  held  sway  every  time  William  Jen- 
nings Bryan  invited  all  the  ambassadorial  boys 
and  girls  to  gather  round  his  merry  board  to 
carry  on  and  raise  the  deuce  generally? 

A  short  investigation  showed  that  many  of 
my  fears  were  groundless.  For  one  thing,  I  was 
relieved  to  find  on  page  59  of  the  admirable  "  Re- 
port of  Superintendent  of  Police,"  which  Chief 
of  Po-lice  Raymond  W.  Pullman  kindly  let  me 
have,  that  whereas  only  thirty-four  citizens  had 
fallen  down-stairs  ( see  statistics  headed,  "  Casu- 
alties —  Accidents  " )  throughout  the  whole  Dis- 
trict during  the  entire  dry  year  of  1916,  there 
were  forty-seven  who  tumbled  down-stairs  fol- 
lowing the  enforcement  of  the  general  order  of 
1917  that  a  man's  place  to  drink  is  in  the  home. 

75 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

How  faithfully  and  patriotically  an  outwardly 
dry  Washington  is  living  up  to  the  letter  as  well 
as  the  spirit  of  an  indoor  and  inwardly  wet  law 
may  be  seen  by  glancing,  on  the  same  page  of  the 
major's  report,  at  the  line  of  statistical  figures 
headed,  "  Accidents  —  Street  Falls."  Here  one 
learns  that  117  Washingtonians  fell  flat  on  the 
street  and  hurt  themselves  during  the  wet  spell, 
whereas,  following  the  ruling  that  every  one 
must  do  one's  falling  down  in  one's  home  circle, 
there  were  only  47  who  hit  the  out-door  street 
pavements  forcibly  enough  to  need  police  help 
after -the  al  fresco  dryness  set  in. 

Major  Pullman  sees  fit  to  point  with  pride  to 
the  fact  that  although  there  were  all  of  1704 
Districtites  who  had  to  be  bundled  into  the 
hurry-up  police-wagon  during  the  soggy  months 
of  November  and  December  of  1916,  there  were 
only  507  drunk  and  dressed-up  gentlemen 
dragged  before  the  local  calif  throughout  the 
corresponding  dry  months  of  1917.  But  does  the 
major  see  fit  to  explain  the  patent  fact  that  one 
of  his  cops  may  not  enter  citizens'  houses  pro- 
miscuously to  see  what  is  happening  round  the 
dining-room  buffet?  The  major  does  not.  Also 
it  would  be  interesting  to  hear  some  explanation 

76 


from  Major  Pullman  regarding  a  final  item  on 
his  list  of  "  Accidents."  The  major's  statisti- 
cians say  that  during  1916,  or  before  we  went  to 
war,  there  were  55  Washingtonians  "  overcome 
by  gas,"  whereas  the  police  report  says  that  in 
1917,  regardless  of  the  arrival  of  more  crates  of 
orators  in  Washington  than  even  the  capital 
ever  dreamed  existed,  the  escaping  gas  prostrated 
only  45  innocent  bystanders,  supposing  there  are 
any  bystanders  round  Washington  in  these  days 
who  are  innocent.  Before  closing  the  major's 
meaty  report,  it  is  worth  noting  that  the  order 
which  changed  America's,  the  world's,  greatest 
indoor-outdoor  sport  entirely,  so  far  as  Wash- 
ington is  concerned,  into  an  indoor  recreation, 
also  has  had  a  pronounced  effect  upon  the  dusky 
belt  that  stretches  like  a  ribbon  of  black  velvet 
along  the  water-front  wharves.  For  in  the  mat- 
ter of  the  major's  list  headed,  "  ASSAULTS  — 
In  The  Streets,"  one  learns  that  in  the  last  days 
of  the  soggy  season  207  swarthy  gentlemen  (see 
subtitle,  "Assaults  with  Razors")  settled  207  al 
fresco  arguments  with  the  best  beloved  Afro- 
American  weapon,  whereas  only  124  street 
lyceum  debates  were  brought  to  a  close  with 
razors  during  the  corresponding  months  that 

77 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

dryly  wound  up  the  silly  old  year  of  1917. 
A  chief  difficulty  with  the  excise  law  which  a 
paternal  Congress  and  commissioners  wished 
upon  Washington  is  that  the  law  itself  is  a  bit 
befuddled.  About  the  only  section  in  the  statute 
which  is  perfectly  clear  even  to  the  police  is  the 
fact  that  one  can't  buy  a  drink.  Not  even  in 
clubs  can  one  get  so  much  as  a  bottle  of  beer. 
Not  even,  even,  'even,  even,  even  in  the  National 
Press  Club !  In  fact,  the  saddest  sight  to  me  of 
the  whole  world  war  of  sorrows  presented  itself 
one  evening  in  the  Press  Club  a  few  months  after 
Washington  had  been  blotted  dry.  It  was 
merely  the  solemnity  of  a  tableau  in  which  a 
ruddy-faced  young  Congressman,  his  complexion 
indicating  that  it  wras  beginning  to  fade  white 
again  in  spots  where  a  carefully  acquired  indoor 
tan  was  bleaching  off,  sat  listlessly  splitting  a 
bottle  of  Peevo  or  Blabblo  or  some  such  kickless 
concoction  with  a  girthy  newspaper  correspond- 
ent throughout  a  terrifically  thrilling  game  of 
dominoes.  What  the  two  wrere  doing  out  of 
Baltimore  so  late  I  cannot  explain.  The  con- 
gressman hailed  from  the  arid  regions  of  Maine, 
the  newspaper  man  from  sun-parched  South 
Carolina;  therefore  even  their  own  fond  parents 

78 


WATER,  WATER  EVERYWHERE 

back  in  their  native  States  had  no  way  of  fixing 
them  up  a  little  bottled  snack  of  the  old-time 
home  cheeriness  and  easing  it  along  to  their  boys. 
Already  the  representative  and  the  reporter  were 
beginning  to  pick  at  the  covers.  Then,  toward 
nine  o'clock  at  night,  the  congressman  in  wan 
tones  asked  the  correspondent  if  he  wished  the 
thrill  of  a  final  game  of  dominoes.  For  a  mo- 
ment the  newspaper  man  mused  dreamily,  but 
of  a  sudden  his  face  lighted  with  the  fires  of  in- 
spiration. 

"  Sure !  "  he  cried,  alertly  seizing  his  hat  and 
coat  and  summoning  an  attendant  to  call  an 
Auto-To-Hire.  "  Let 's  play  it  on  the  next  train 
to  Baltimore."  And  they  went  out  into  the 
night. 

The  reassuring  figures  in  Major  Pullman's  re- 
port concerning  the  steady  increase  in  the  num- 
ber of  Washingtonians  who  fall  down  indoors 
are  undoubtedly  accurate.  In  fact,  the  sta- 
tistics were  backed  up  recently  in  a  national  pub- 
lication, published,  I  believe,  in  Chicago,  and 
called  the  Policeman's  Monthly,  in  an  article 
that  was  beautifully  set  off  with  a  "  half-tone  " 
frontispiece  entitled,  "  Washington  Police  Ser- 
geant Resuscitating  a  Man  Overcome  by  Water." 

79 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

Looking  at  the  subject  from  even  its  gloomiest 
side,  undoubtedly  there  was  a  sufficient  amount 
of  encouragement  in  Major  Pullman's  lists  of 
figures  to  indicate  that,  after  all,  there  was  still 
a  lot  of  unregenerated  raw  material  lying  loose 
round  the  capital,  if  it  could  only  be  coaxed  from 
the  buffet  into  the  outdoors,  for  Billy  Sunday  to 
work  upon.  Besides,  if  everything  else  failed 
Billy,  always  at  hand  was  the  wricked,  shameless 
young  Uncle  Joe  Cannon,  who  still  smokes  two 
cigars  at  a  time,  lighting  them  ends  on  ends, 
who  still  says  damn  and  everything,  even  for  pub- 
lication, still  does  dance  steps  at  all  unholy 
hours  in  the  now  solemn  lounging-room  of  the 
National  Press  Club,  altogether  dissipating  his 
youth  in  a  manner  so  shocking  that  the  regenera- 
tion of  Uncle  Joe  Cannon  alone  would  necessi- 
tate the  building  of  a  yellow-pine  tabernacle 
covering  a  city  square  and  the  concentrated  ef- 
forts of  Billy  Sunday's  entire  repertory  of  ser- 
mons and  all  of  Homer  Rodeheaver's  slip-horn 
hymns  combined.  A  hard  citizen  is  Uncle  Joe, 
—  he  admits  it, —  but  just  so  sure  as  there  is  a 
dawning  sun  to  light  the  homebound  path  of  such 
sun-dodging  hawks  of  night,  just  so  sure  will  the 
wicked  prodigality  with  which  the  Hon.  Joe 

80 


WATER,  WATER  EVERYWHERE 

Cannon  wastes  his  best  days  get  him  in  time,  and 
get  him  good. 

Now,  as  to  the  matter  of  the  atrophy  of  the 
good  right  arms  of  the  distinguished  admirals, 
generals,  and  statesmen,  here  again  a  kindly 
providence  that  takes  care  of  fools,  drunken 
men,  and  the  United  States  of  America  has 
stepped  in  with  a  substitute  arm  exercise.  All 
day,  every  day  since  war  began,  the  right  arms 
of  the  generals,  admirals,  and  colonels  are  work- 
ing overtime  in  the  calisthenics  of  the  military 
salute.  One  cannot  walk  two  consecutive  feet 
in  a  war-time  Washington,  through  the  streets, 
in  hotel  lobbies,  or  the  clubs,  without  stepping 
upon  salutable  military  folk,  who  range  in  rank 
from  the  more  or  less  soldierly  looking  Private 
Jeb  Hooper  of  Bird-In-Hand,  Pennsylvania,  all 
the  way  up  to  the  ecstatic  vision  of  a  group  of 
ranking  British  artillery  officers,  seated  in  the 
luncheon  jam  at  the  Shoreham  and  all  dressed 
up  like  a  broken  arm.  That  copy  of  Baedeker 
from  which  the  wife,  on  our  trip  from  New  York 
to  Washington,  had  dug  up  much  accurate  in- 
formation about  a  national  capital  of  the  vintage 
of  1908  observes  that  the  population  of  the  Dis- 
trict "  includes  about  40,000  army  and  navy 

81 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

officers."  He 's  a  great  little  describer,  is  Bae- 
deker, but  meticulous.  Why,  in  Washington  to- 
day there  are  seemingly  fully  that  many  brand- 
new  little  second  lieutenants  running  loose  on 
the  range,  all  rigged  out  in  the  crinkly  new  uni- 
forms so  recently  off  the  shop  shelves  that  an 
irreverent  Washington  has  descended  to  group- 
ing the  new  young  army  generically  as  "  the 
Sears-Roebucks."  And  even  if  there  was  no  oc- 
casion for  this  chronic  saluting  exercises  among 
aged  army  and  navy  elbows,  the  war-time  prac- 
tice of  always  wearing  one's  uniform  permits  one 
also  to  carry  a  pair  of  field-glasses  these  days  — 
at  least  to  carry  the  case  —  without  causing  em- 
barrassing comment;  and  field-glass  cases  come 
in  half -pint,  pint,  quart,  and  even  magnum  sizes. 
Then  as  to  elbow  exercises  among  the  mighty 
statesmen  who,  so  I  had  foolishly  feared,  were 
in  danger  of  atrophy  of  the  biceps  when  their  pet 
cafe  counters  had  ceased  to  function,  all  one  has 
to  do  in  these  days  to  dispel  such  idle  fears  is  to 
glance  into  the  Senate  or  the  House  and  see  the 
windmill  arms  swing  wildly  and  always  as  the 
great  men  daily  take  up  their  task  of  saving  the 
nation.  One  does  not  even  have  to  go  into  the 
Capitol  to  be  reassured;  all  one  has  to  do  is  to 

82 


WATER,  WATER  EVERYWHERE 

stand  out  on  a  curbstone  of  Capitol  Hill  and 
lean  against  the  noise  as  the  patriots  bang  their 
oratorical  fists  on  their  desks  while  in  the  throes 
of  the  great  indoor  sport  of  trying  to  bat  in  the 
.350  class  of  the  Patriotic  League. 

Finally,  as  regards  the  absence  of  liquid 
tongue-looseners  and  the  effect  of  the  lack  of 
them  upon  social  functions,  it  is  only  fair  to  state 
that  as  a  usual  thing  a  social  affair  in  Washing- 
ton is  not  nearly  so  dry  as,  to  take  a  somewhat 
extreme  example  for  comparison,  the  Great 
American  Desert.  Washington  at  war  has  suf- 
fered a  tapering  off  on  the  social  side,  of  course. 
Great  state  dinners  have  been  discontinued ;  the 
"  formal "  dinner  or  dinner  dance  in  the  home 
has  almost  quite  perished,  and  there  is  a  conse- 
quent weeping  and  wailing  among  gown-builders 
and  hair-wavers  who  are  beginning  to  feel  the 
pangs  of  dwindling  bank-account.  The  func- 
tions nowadays  run  largely  to  theater-parties,  a 
fashion  for  box-parties  probably  having  been  set 
by  a  President  who  still  makes  a  practice  of  go- 
ing to  the  theater  at  least  once  or  twice  a  week. 

Nevertheless,  the  dining-rooms  along  Con- 
necticut and  Massachusetts  avenues  have  n't 
been  entirely  scrapped,  and  since  November  1, 

83 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

1917,  acceptances  are  much  more  easily  obtained. 
Not  so  many  months  ago  a  Washington  host  or 
hostess  often  had  difficulty  in  mobilizing  enough 
male  eligibles  between  the  social  draft  ages  of 
twenty  and  sixty  to  make  a  mess.  The  town  was 
fed  up  on  the  social  side.  But  to-day  let  the 
word  go  forth  that  a  potential  host  has  a  well- 
stocked  cellar  of  liquid  lightning, —  and  usually 
he  has, —  and  there  will  be  a  stampede  of  old 
and  young  folk  carrying  lightning-rods  and  all 
praying  aloud  to  be  struck.  They  may  even  ap- 
pear in  business  suits,  a  simplified  war  capital 
for  the  first  time  in  its  history  having  recently 
ruled  that  spiked-tailed  coats  and  the  rest  of  the 
sartorial  fluffs  and  feathers  are  not  absolutely 
necessary. 

And  so  it  still  happens  that  a  host  or  hostess 
will  stand  right  up  and  say,  "  Let 's  give  a 
party ! "  whereupon  a  new  Washington  that 
came  into  being  on  that  first  black  November 
day  begins  to  whisper  delicately,  "  Do  they  serve 
the  hard  stuff  in  that  house?  "  And  if  the  an- 
swer is,  "  You  betcha  they  do,"  that  particular 
host  is  certain  of  a  big  mail  filled  with  positive 
replies  to  his  R.  S.  V.  P.'s,  and  on  the  night  of 

84 


WATER,  WATER  EVERYWHERE 

the  great  day  the  line  forms  in  Connecticut  Ave- 
nue, right  resting  on  Massachusetts,  and  extends 
far  off  into  the  dry  night  air. 

All  these  and  many  more  bits  of  sociological, 
ethical,  political,  and  scientific  data  of  a  like 
international  importance  I  came  upon  while 
awaiting  official  word  that  the  telephone  ex- 
change had  caught  up  with  itself  sufficiently  to 
consider  the  preliminaries  of  taking  some  action 
on  my  telephone  call  to  Baltimore.  By  mid- 
afternoon,  or  within  almost  as  few  hours  as  it 
takes  to  telephone  the  corner  spaghetti  dealer  on 
a  government-owned  line  in  Europe,  I  had  begun 
to  get  in  touch  telephonically  with  the  wife,  and 
had  broken  to  her  the  glad  news  about  the  vener- 
able retired  army  officer  who  had  gone  away  to 
grow  old  beautifully  amid  the  rye-fields  and 
lovely  old  distilleries  in  and  around  his  native 
Peoria. 

Would  it  not  be  jolly  —  thus  the  wife  over  the 
telephone  from  Baltimore  —  to  engage  a  car  and 
motor  over  to  Washington?  It  would  not,  I  told 
her.  Nowadays,  as  I  hastened  to  point  out  to 
her,  the  Old  Pike  which  connects  Baltimore  and 
Washington  is  so  cluttered  up  with  broken  bot- 

85 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

ties  that  no  rubber  shoe  or  inner  tube  can  live  the 
length  of  a  city  square  upon  that  forty -odd  mile 
stretch  of  ground  glass.  That 's  the  road  over 
which  John  Wilkes  Booth  once  fled  to  temporary 
safety,  but  Booth  used  a  horse.  If  he  had  tried 
to  skedaddle  along  it  in  an  automobile  while  it 
is  in  its  present  condition,  John's  life  doubtless 
would  have  lasted  just  twelve  days  less  than  it 
did.  It  is  an  open  question,  when  one  adds  up 
the  weekly  cost  of  the  high-priced  inner  tubes  and 
tires  destroyed  along  the  Old  Pike  in  these  days, 
whether  the  patriots  who  dried  up  the  capital 
showed  war-time  wisdom  in  their  honorable  ef- 
forts to  save  the  less  costly  inner  tubing  of  hu- 
mans from  becoming  pickled.  Maybe  yes,  maybe 
no.  Rubber  is  scarce,  but  one  always  can  get 
people. 

"  Stick  to  the  steam-cars,  old  dear,"  was  my 
advice  to  the  wife  over  the  telephone.  Also  I 
was  about  to  add  something  to  the  general  effect 
that  if  the  wife  did  happen  to  decide  to  bring  a 
small  flask  of  Baltimore's  leading  war  export 
with  her  in  her  hand-bag,  she  had  better  keep  an 
eye  out  for  Major  Pullman's  souse  sleuths  as 
the  train  crept  into  Washington.  However,  the 
wife  being  the  wife,  I  decided  the  advice  would 

86 


WATER,  WATER  EVERYWHERE 

be  superfluous.  Small  chance !  Smallest  chance 
that  the  wife  would  remember  that  the  only  thing 
standing  between  us  and  a  sudden  chill  or  some- 
thing was  my  little,  old,  black  traveling-bag. 
That  was  now  locked  up  and  still  partly  intact  in 
the  closet  of  our  new  room  in  the  Fourteenth 
Street  hotel,  but  it  was  sadly  dwindling;  so  many 
persons  settle  in  Washington  in  these  days  from 
so  many  places  that  no  visitor  can  walk  two 
squares  without  meeting  a  parched  friend  from 
the  old  home  town,  especially  if  one  gets  there 
with  a  little,  old,  black  traveling-bag.  It 's  a 
difficult  thing  to  get  farther  than  two  squares, 
three  at  the  most,  from  one's  hotel  room.  One  is 
always  meeting  up  with  somebody  and  being  com- 
pelled to  turn  right  round  and  bring  the  friend 
back  to  the  hotel  room  and  telephone  down  to 
the  desk  for  a  bit  of  cracked  ice.  Life  is  just  one 
friend  after  another. 

But  there  wasn't  a  chance  of  help  from  the 
wife.  And,  supposing  the  impossible,  if  she  did 
get  in  a  little  medicinal  stock  of  liquid  munitions 
and  stow  it  away  in  her  hand-bag,  I  'd  bet  the 
whole  British  war  loan  against  a  high-wheel 
bicycle  that  Major  Pullman's  sleuths,  down  at 
the  Union  station,  would  grab  that  hand-bag 

87 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

first.  I  know  my  own  luck.  The  major  does  n't 
raid  the  incoming  railway-cars  often  for  smug- 
gled life-saving  liquids,  even  though  the  new  law 
at  least  is  clear  to  the  length  of  saying  that  no 
one  must  bring  or  have  shipped  into  the  District 
any  of  the  bottled  laughter  of  the  peasant  girls 
of  Peoria  or  Milwaukee  unless  a  written  or 
printed  notice  on  the  outside  of  the  hand-bag  or 
packing-case  states  the  nature  of  the  contents. 
Throughout  all  the  stretch  of  1917  that  was  arid 
the  sleuths  arrested  and  seized  the  hand  luggage 
of  only  fifty-eight  incoming  travelers  from  Bal- 
timore, and  there  was  n't  a  wroman  in  the 
round-up.  But  if  the  wife  had  ever  tried  it  — 
well,  I  know  my  luck.  Besides,  one  could  n't  ask 
a  lady,  even  one's  own  wife,  ostentatiously  to 
label  the  facade  of  her  hand-bag  writh  a  legend 
running,  "  This  bag  is  full  to  the  gills."  But 
supposing  I  had  dared  to  suggest  such  a  thing, 
and  supposing  the  wife  had  even  obeyed  the  label 
law  to  the  last  letter,  it  's  a  hundred  to  one  shot 
that  some  Washington  sleuth  would  have  got  the 
hand-bag  before  I  did.  I  know  my  luck  all  right, 
all  right. 

"  Major,"  I  asked  the  efficient  young  police 
boss  of  Washington,  "  is  n't  it  a  bit  ticklish  to  ar- 


From  every    waistcoat   pocket   were   countless   fountain    pens 


WATER,  WATER  EVERYWHERE 

rest  a  new  arrival  and  open  his  baggage  on  mere 
suspicion?  " 

"  Pooh !  "  cried  the  major.  "  It 's  a  cinch  to 
tell  if  a  man  comes  from  Baltimore." 

Just  how  the  major's  sleuths  attempt  to  dam 
the  rapidly  rising  flood  which  steadily  liquidates 
into  Washington  via  the  cross-country  electric 
trolley-line  known  as  the  Washington,  Baltimore 
&  Annapolis  cannot  here  be  clearly  stated. 
From  all  accounts  the  sleuths  have  to  content 
themselves  merely  with  standing  round  and  just 
dam'ing  it.  The  directors  of  this  W.  B.  &  A. 
line  include  Baltimorians  who  are  among  the  na- 
tion's stanchest  advocates  of  any  prohibition 
measures  that  are  confined  to  Washington.  Not 
so  long  ago  that  same  W.  B.  &  A.  trolley-line  was 
earning  in  the  neighborhood  of  one  half  of  one 
per  cent;  and  skating  on  ice  so  thin  that  some 
of  the  unbloated  bondholders  were  in  a  cold  sweat 
lest  they  break  through.  Their  stock  had  been 
a  drag  on  the  market  round  Baltimore  and  Cleve- 
land, sticking  in  the  lower  regions  of  six.  Then 
war  and  its  horrors  burst  upon  the  stockholders. 
Washington  went  dry.  Baltimore  stayed  wet. 
Washington  began  to  take  a  new  interest  in  Bal- 
timore. Dryly  of  a  morning,  any  morning. 

89 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

Washington  began  to  jump  aboard  the  W.  B.  & 
A.  cars,  market-baskets  and  demijohns  under 
arm.  Homeward  that  night  sloshed  Washington 
again,  still  via  the  W.  B.  &  A.  The  electric 
line's  earnings  staggered  from  about  one  half  of 
one  per  cent,  headlong  to  one,  two,  six,  sixteen 
per  cent.  Instead  of  sticking  around  six,  the 
stock  burst  from  its  cell  with  a  terrible  yell, 
until,  by  the  time  the  lid  had  been  completely 
nailed  down  upon  Washington,  the  stock  was  ca- 
reening toward  twenty.  Two  months  later  —  in 
January,  1918  —  it  was  singing  raucously  and 
hitting  the  high  spots  all  the  way  up  to  2Sl/2. 
And  at  last  accounts  it  was  yelling  with  increas- 
ing abandon  as  it  lurched  onward  and  ever  up- 
ward, and  butting  blue-dotted  pink  elephants  off 
the  tracks  so  that  more  and  more  cars  could  whiz 
by.  Cars!  All  the  world  and  its  relatives 
did  n't  have  on  sale  new  cars  enough  to  handle 
the  business.  Besides,  to  have  new  cars  built 
would  cost  about  three  times  as  much  as  the 
same  cars  could  have  been  turned  out  for  just 
before  the  world  went  mad.  But  so  great  was 
the  demand  for  more  rolling  stock  on  the  cross- 
country electric  line  that  a  purchasing  agent  of 
the  W.  B.  &  A.  scouted  high  and  low  until  finally, 

90 


WATER,  WATER  EVERYWHERE 

hundreds  of  miles  away  in  the  yards  of  the  Long 
Island  Railroad  Company,  he  stumbled  upon 
fifty-four  old  cars  that  the  Long  Island  line  had 
as  good  as  scrapped.  At  only  a  slight  cost  for 
refitting  them  the  old  cars  would  be  just  the  thing 
for  interurban  traffic.  Wherefore  the  W.  B.  & 
A.  snatched  up  the  fifty-four  cars  at  less  than 
f 350  apiece,  and  before  the  ancient  rolling  stock 
had  been  delivered  to  its  new  owners  the  W.  B. 
&  A.  bargain-sale  purchasers  could  have  sold  fif- 
teen of  the  cars  for  $20,000,  thus  retaining  thirty- 
nine  "  new  "  cars  which  had  cost  them  less  than 
nothing. 

And  still  there  are  fat-headed  reform  folk  who 
insist  that  booze  is  bad  for  business ! 

But  despite  the  fast-flying  electric-line  whiz- 
zers  and  the  Rumhound  Unlimited,  the  Cannon 
High-Ball  Express,  the  many  sections  of  the 
Liquor  Local,  and  the  rest  of  the  steam,  electric, 
and  gasolene  traction  between  the  dry  belt  and 
the  wet,  the  fact  remains  that  it  is  a  weighty 
problem  to  find  a  spot  in  Washington  where  one 
will  be  struck  by  even  a  casual  flash  of  liquid 
lightning.  Even  if  one  owns  a  flivver  of  the  Tin 
Lizzie  model  —  and  everybody  in  the  capital 
nowadays  does  —  which  one  is  n't  afraid  to  sub- 

91 


THE  WAR- WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

mit  to  the  terrors  of  the  bottle-strewn  old  pike, 
there 's  the  annoyance  of  having  to  buy  a  District 
of  Columbia  automobile  license  as  well  as  a 
Maryland  license  number  for  Lizzie  before  one 
can  head  eastward  over  the  Pennsylvania  Ave- 
nue bridge  in  the  general  direction  of  Baltimore 
and  booze,  and  both  licenses  are  sold  at  a  price 
which  would  cause  a  New  York  or  Chicago  mo- 
torist deep,  perhaps  fatal,  distress.  The  District 
of  Columbia  permits  a  driver  owning  a  license 
issued  by  any  State  in  the  Union  except  Mary- 
land to  come  and  go  about  the  capital  as  he 
pleases  without  taking  out  a  district  license. 
The  State  of  Maryland  gives  the  right  of  way  to 
all  licenses  of  the  various  States,  but  refuses  to 
admit  a  District  car  unless  the  skipper  of  the 
car  also  sports  a  Maryland  license  even  a  flivver 
length  inside  the  State.  This  condition  is  the 
outcome  of  an  old,  old  battle  between  the  Mary- 
land and  the  District  of  Columbia  automobile 
authorities,  and  now  in  these  dryish  days  it  is 
breaking  the  brave,  but  thirst-ridden,  souls  and 
hearts  of  some  of  nature's  noblest  gentlemen. 

Then  it  must  be  remembered  that  although  all 
of  Washington  may  visit  Baltimore  some  of  the 
time,  and  some  of  Washington  may  hang  round 

92 


WATER,  WATER  EVERYWHERE 

Baltimore  all  the  time,  all  of  Washington  cannot 
be  in  Baltimore  all  the  time.  Washington's 
bankers,  brokers,  teamsters,  statesmen,  and  mo- 
tormen  have  enough  work  to  do  in  these  days  to 
require  their  presence  in  their  own  *bailiwick  at 
least  a  part  of  every  week.  Wherefore  Major 
Pullman  points  with  pride  to  the  fact  that  in  the 
two  months  of  outdoor  dry  weather  of  1917  there 
was  a  decrease  of  seventy  per  cent,  in  squiffiness 
and  the  general  attendant  cussedness  which 
causes  ossified  gentlemen  to  begin  the  day  by 
saying,  "  Good  morning,  Judge."  Even  Con- 
gressmen have  to  stay  in  Washington  a  bit  and 
do  some  congressing,  and  no  more  can  they  put 
their  feet  on  the  brass  rail  in  or  around  the  Capi- 
tol. Until  a  day  some  years  ago  —  it  was  during 
the  czardorn  of  the  Tom  Reed  dynasty  —  a  thirsty 
statesman  could  submerge  into  the  hard  stuff 
that  liquidated  the  House  restaurant  and,  right 
under  the  Capitol  roof,  stay  submerged  and  never 
come  up  for  air  again  until  the  end  of  the  ses- 
sion if  he  so  desired.  And  if  he  did  seek  the  sur- 
face, he  could  immediately  take  a  high  dive  again 
to  the  depths  of  the  alcohol  floods  in  the  restau- 
rant under  the  Senate  section.  But  in  the  Reed 
regime  the  House  closed  its  bar,  knowing  that 

93 


THE  WAR- WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

there  was  just  as  good  stuff  to  be  had,  maybe 
better,  in  the  other  restaurant  on  the  Senate 
side.  And  just  for  that  the  Senate,  two  or  three 
sessions  later,  locked  up  their  bar  and  hid  the 
key,  laughing  heartily  the  while  at  the  splendid 
joke  they  were  playing  on  the  House.  The  next 
instant  the  Senate,  like  the  House,  was  wonder- 
ing whether  or  not  the  whole  proceeding  was  such 
an  all-fired  joke  after  all.  Right  away  the  pa- 
triots began  to  spill  out  of  both  wings  of  the 
Capitol,  and  they  raced  across  the  lawns  and 
over  the  asphalt  and  never  stopped  running  until 
they  had  fetched  up  at  Engel's  or  at  one  of  sev- 
eral hotel  bars,  or  at  all  several  eventually,  in 
the  Capitol  Hill  neighborhood.  But  in  time 
Engel's  was  torn  down,  and  with  the  fearsome 
crash  that  landed  upon  Washington  in  the  black 
November  of  1917  not  even  a  congressman  from 
the  State  of  Maine  could  find  a  place  to  get  a 
dram.  And  if  a  Maine  man  can't  find  a  dram, 
it 's  because  there  ain't  no  such  animal.  I  re- 
member one  night  while  waiting  between  trains 
in  Bangor.  just  while  waiting  between  trains,  I 
started  out  with  a  Bangor  policeman  as  guide 
to- 

But  one  can't  sit  round  a  Washington  hotel 
94 


WATER,  WATER  EVERYWHERE 

room  in  the  gathering  dusk  of  a  late  winter  after- 
noon and  recount  the  horrors  of  even  one  night 
in  bone-dry  Bangor,  can't  even  uncork  the  gen- 
eral outline  of  so  sad  and  soggy  a  tale;  not  if 
the  raconteur  ever  expects  to  get  down  to  the 
Union  Station  in  time  to  greet  a  wife  arriving 
on  a  section  of  the  Baltimore- Washington  Liquor 
Local  scheduled  to  reach  Washington  in  time  to 
pick  up  its  regular  six  o'clock  eastbound  load. 


95 


CHAPTER  IV 

"  ALL  'S  RIOTOUS  ALONG  THE  POTOMAC  !  " 

AY,  young  fellow,"  I  said  to  myself  as  I  hur- 
ried  through  the  gathering  gloom  to  meet 
the  wife,  "  do  you  know  something?  "  "  What?  " 
I  asked  myself,  pausing  for  a  moment  in  my 
flight.  "  Just  this,"  I  replied.  "  You  're  going 
to  get  down  to  the  Union  Station  just  in  time  to 
get  smothered  in  the  six  o'clock  rush  hour  on 
the  way  back  to  the  hotel.  What  do  you  know 
about  that,  huh?  "  "  Oh,  ding !  "  was  all  I  could 
say,  and  I  hurried  on. 

And,  sure  enough,  the  wife  came  through  the 
Union  Station  gate  and  on  to  the  concourse  just 
in  time  to  miss  the  last  Auto-To-Hire  in  line. 
Wherefore  nothing  remained  for  us  to  do  but  to 
try  to  work  through  a  jam  around  the  trolley- 
tracks  and  await  a  chance  to  dynamite  an  open- 
ing into  the  heart  of  the  mass  play  of  strap- 
hangers. 

Every  super-crowded  car  that  came  along  the 
96 


ALONG  THE  POTOMAC 

trolley-tracks  bit  off  a  piece  of  the  large,  round 
edge  of  the  particular  mob  of  which  we,  the  wife 
and  I,  were  a  part.  There  were  other  mobs  scat- 
tered along  the  pavement  in  front  of  the  station, 
each  of  the  separate  crowds  hopeful,  like  our  own 
private  mob,  that  along  would  come  a  car  that 
did  n't  bulge  outward.  And  as  in  time  we  moved 
an  inch  to  the  step  from  the  sidewalk  to  a  point 
close  to  the  car-tracks  I  saw  that  girthy  men  on 
the  fore  line  of  standees  were  losing  coat-buttons 
every  time  a  slow-moving  trolley-car  got  under 
way  and  slid  its  length  against  the  front  eleva- 
tions of  our  vanguard.  I  feared  for  what  might 
happen  when  the  wife,  who  was  hopelessly 
wedged  in  front  of  me,  made  that  front  line. 

"  Dearie,"  I  cried  in  sudden  alarm,  "  you 
did  n't  by  any  chance  bring  anything  from  Bal- 
timore that  —  you  have  n't  anything  in  your 
hand-bag  that 's  breakable?  If  you  have,  no 
glassware  ever  will  withstand  the  — " 

"No;  there's  no  glassware  from  Baltimore  in 
my  bag,"  snapped  the  wife  directly  into  the  ear 
of  the  man  wedged  in  front  of  her,  the  closeness 
of  the  jam  making  it  impossible  for  her  to  turn 
her  head  and  address  me  personally.  "  I  'd  look 
pretty,  would  n't  I,  going  on  such  a  disreputable 

97 


THE  WAR- WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

shopping  expedition  in  Baltimore!  Besides,  as 
I  've  told  you  before,  the  law  is  the  law.  We 
must  obey  it." 

And  so  we  stood  there  in  silence  a  long,  long 
time  after  that.  It  didn't  make  happier  my 
musings  when  I  recalled  that  at  least  we  might 
have  escaped  the  terrors  of  the  rush-hour  jam  if 
the  local  telephone  company  had  only  taken  a 
few  less  hours  to  put  my  telephone  call  through 
to  Baltimore.  In  time  we  worked  at  least  close 
enough  to  the  passing  trolley-cars  to  enable  me 
to  take  a  bit  of  the  curse  off  the  delay  by  reading 
the  frieze  of  advertisements  that  stretched  along 
the  inside  of  the  cars  just  above  the  heads  of  the 
strap-hangers.  But  even  the  car  advertisements 
would  n't  let  me  forget  the  Washington  telephone 
service,  for  on  one  of  the  cards  in  a  passing  car 
was  a  printed  appeal,  phrased  patriotically, 
which  said  in  effect  that  now  was  the  time  for  all 
good  girls  to  come  to  the  aid  of  the  telephone 
company  to  do  their  bit  by  accepting  jobs  as 
hello-ladies. 

Maybe  the  telephone  company  had  a  lurking 
notion  that  if  such  an  appeal  were  plastered  all 
over  the  street-cars  the  public  would  stop  grum- 
bling and  in  patriotic  fashion  convince  itself  that 

98 


the  whole  frazzled  condition  of  the  service  was 
due  to  war-time  labor  shortage.  Maybe  the  com- 
pany had  that  thought  in  mind;  I  don't  know. 
But  I  did  reflect,  as  we  waited  our  chance  to 
board  a  car,  that  if  ever  a  corporation  ap- 
proached a  big  business  increase  with  a  sour 
equipment  with  which  to  try  to  handle  the  new 
rush,  it  was  that  same  local  exchange.  Like  our 
army  and  navy  departments,  the  Washington 
telephone  persons  for  years  had  mooched  and 
browsed  and  stumbled  along  with  an  equipment 
that  was  the  last  word  in  unpreparedness,  while 
cuss  words  arose  from  the  Anacostia  to  George- 
town and  back  again  as  subscribers  and  casual 
users  of  the  telephone  called  for  numbers  that 
rarely  came. 

Then  when  the  present  big  noise  did  begin  to 
detonate  among  a  lot  of  official  and  civil  nappers, 
the  telephone  company,  quite  as  much  as  the 
newly  aroused  governmental  departments,  ran 
up  against  a  shiftlessness  among  minor  em- 
ployees that  is  the  outgrowth  of  a  condition 
which  has  been  peculiar  to  Washington  since  the 
city  was  young.  For  even  the  mightiest  mili- 
tary-political-social-commercial upheaval  of  his- 
tory has  not  yet  been  able  to  down  altogether 

99 


THE  WAR-WHIRE  IN  WASHINGTON 

one  phase  of  salaried  service  which  for  genera- 
tions had  been  carefully  fostered  in  the  City  of 
Salaries.  Throughout  so  many  years  that  they 
are  uncountable  Washington  has  been  looked 
upon  by  its  largest  section  of  salaried  folk,  the 
government  clerks,  as  a  personal  sort  of  very 
rich  and  easy-going  old  Uncle  Samuel,  to  whom 
the  governmental  employee  bears  the  relation  of 
an  impecunious  niece  or  nephew  that  Unk  should 
support  "  until  something  better  turns  up." 
There  you  have  it,  that  until-something-better- 
turns-up  attitude  of  rich  old  link's  poor  rela- 
tives, who  look  to  him  for  a  fair  income,  or  even 
fairer  than  that,  and  only  enough  work  to  satisfy 
the  conscience.  There  was  a  period  when  the 
office  hours  of  a  clerk  in  the  Pension  Office,  in 
the  War,  State,  Patent,  any  department,  ran 
from  the  time  the  youthful  patriot  decided  to  get 
to  his  desk  round  mid-forenoon  until  he  allowed 
that  he  'd  put  on  his  hat  and  go  home,  which  was 
usually  a  bit  after  mid-afternoon.  Then  into  the 
capital  one  day  came  a  middle-aged  ex-sheriff 
from  Buffalo  named  G.  Cleveland,  and  one  of  the 
first  things  ex-Sheriff  Cleveland  did,  after  select- 
ing a  White  House  room  with  southern  exposure, 
was  to  start  right  in  to  hurt  the  tenderly  nur- 

100 


ALONG  THE  POTOMAC 

tured  feeliugs  of  a  large  part  of  the  Government's 
official  younger  set  by  suggesting  that  the  only 
way  to  be  on  the  job  was  to  be  on  the  job.  The 
former  Sheriff  of  Buffalo  did  n't  quite  go  to  the 
extreme  of  instituting  in  Washington  the  na- 
tional pastime  of  punching  the  time-clock  —  a 
pastime  common  enough  in  all  the  nation's  busi- 
ness houses  except  in  the  country's  own  main 
works  at  Washington;  but  Mr.  Cleveland  did 
crack  the  whip  with  sufficient  force  to  cause  an 
instant  increase  in  the  sale  of  ninety-eight-cent 
alarm-clocks  all  over  the  boarding-house  belt  of 
the  capital. 

Brute!  Simon  Legree!  The  wails  of  injured 
innocence  almost  drowned  out  the  grand  munici- 
pal buzzing  of  the  alarm-clocks.  That  growling 
and  grumbling  of  resentment  against  the  curse 
of  being  compelled  to  do  at  least  some  labor  in 
return  for  one's  salary  continued  on  through  sub- 
sequent years  of  peace,  and  right  on  up  to  the 
first  war  summer,  and  beyond.  One  might  say 
that  the  plaintive  protest  against  actual  work 
never  really  reached  its  high  C  until  the  first 
summer  of  the  country's  participation  in  a  world 
war.  Never  before  in  a  century  of  summers  had 
Washington  been  compelled  to  sweat  its  brow 

101 


THE  WAR-WHIEL  IN  WASHINGTON 

during  the  hot  months  until  the  riotous  summer 
of  1917  ricochetted  into  town.  Not  only  the 
much  abused  government  "  workers,"  but  the  ele- 
vator-boys, waiters,  the  shop  clerks  in  F  Street, 
even  the  barkeeps  who  looked  gloomily  toward 
the  fast-approaching  surcease  of  the  souse,  all 
Washington's  permanent  force  of  kid-glove  hired 
hands  bitterly  resented  the  indignity  of  suddenly 
being  called  upon  to  do  almost  as  much  work  in 
a  day  as  any  of  the  business  folk  in  lower  Man- 
hattan does  in  an  average  morning.  And  just 
as  the  Down-trod  and  Oppressed  had  begun,  to- 
ward the  end  of  the  hot  months,  to  grow  some- 
what accustomed  to  working  even  in  summer, 
they  began  to  realize  that  their  labors  were  piling 
up  in  direct  ratio  to  the  progress  and  duration 
of  the  World  War ;  and  so  they  started  in  upon 
an  autumn  and  winter  of  discontent.  They  had 
just  about  decided  to  rouse  themselves  almost 
into  wide  awakeness  —  we  are  considering  the 
chronic  Washington  employee  now,  not  the  in- 
flux of  men  and  women  who  came  to  town  to  do 
war  work  —  and  to  stay  almost  awake,  when  into 
their  hands  fell  more  and  more  and  more,  the 
downpour  increasing  daily,  darn  old  war  busi- 
ness to  take  care  of.  And  with  the  increase  in 

102 


ALONG  THE  POTOMAC 

work  came  also  discontent  among  lady  and  gen- 
tlemen laborers  in  the  governmental  and  com- 
mercial vineyards  who  had  been  fairly  happy  in 
their  jobs  until  they  heard  exaggerated  tales  of 
the  larger  financial  opportunities  in  the  offices  of 
mushroom  growth  which  war  conditions  had 
brought  about. 

Honest,  Maggie,  I  hope  t'  die  if  this  old 
switch-board  ain't  drivin'  me  to  a  livin'  corpse. 
Gripes,  but  this  job  sure  is  gettin'  somethin' 
fierce!  And  here  we  set,  Maggie,  lettin'  'em 
treat  us  like  we  was  dirt  under  their  feet  instead 
of  —  Yes,  sir.  I  've  told  you  twicet  already, 
sir,  I  kinnot  get  you  that  numbah,  being  as  the 
line  is  busy.  Listen,  Maggie!  Ain't  we  the 
dumb  things  lettin'  'em  treat  us  like  we  was  dirt 
under  their  feet  instead  of  pickin'  off  easy  jobs 
like  Bertha  Higgins  and  Tillie  Hooper  and  all 
them  girls,  over  in  the  Red  Cross  and  war  places 
like  that,  for  twicet  as  much  as  they  got  here. 
Listen,  Maggie.  Last  Sunday  eve  I  seen  Bertha 
with  a  swell  fellah  at  Poli's,  and  did  n't  she  have 
on  a  new  fox  set  that  was  simply  —  Don't  you 
dast  swear  over  the  wire  at  me,  sir!  Ain't  J 
givin'  all  my  whole  day  tryin'  to  get  your  pahty? 
I  don't  care  who  you  are;  that  don't  give  a 

103 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

gelmun  absolutely  no  right  to  forget  he  's  a  gel- 
mun  and  try  to  get  new  with  me.  Listen,  Mag- 
gie. He  says,  "  I  '11  reeport  you  to  the  mang- 
munt  and  have  you  discharged !  "  Ain't  that  a 
riot?  I  should  be  annoyed  with  worryin'  about 
this  old  job!  And  listen.  All  Bertha  Higgins 
did  was  to  go  to  a  night  course  in  the  business 
collidge  every  eve  for  a  few  weeks  after  finishin' 
up  her  work  here  every  day.  Of  course  her 
workin'  in  the  business  collidge  so  late  was  the 
reason  she  was  always  asleep  at  the  switch  here, 
like  all  them  other  girls  that 's  goin'  t'  night 
collidge ;  but  look  how  it 's  bettered  them  in  life ! 
And  listen.  Your  pahty  does  not  answah,  sir. 
Listen,  Maggie.  That 's  what  I  'm  goin'  t'  do. 
I  'in  goin'  to  the  business  collidge  just  long 
enough  t'  grab  off  one  of  these  regular  swell  jobs 
lyin?  loose  all  over  this  burg  since  the  war 
started.  I  kinnot  stand  this  work  no  longer  and 
live,  Maggie.  And  so  I  'm  goin'  t'  study  for  a 
stenographer  or  somethin',  and  just  stall  along 
daytimes  on  this  telephone  job,  like  Bertha  Hig- 
gins and  all  them  girls,  until  they  Ve  learned  me 
enough  at  the  collidge  to  land  somethin'  big. 

And  there  you  are.     Back  in  the  dear  dead 
days  of  peace  silly  old  link's  nephews  meandered 

104 


ALONG  THE  POTOMAC 

along  as  government  clerks  during  a  few  sunlit 
hours  each  day,  or  just  long  enough  to  corral  a 
pay-envelop  of  sufficient  fatness  to  pay  the 
boarding-house  and  clothes  bills,  and  at  night 
they  studied  medicine  or  law  in  one  or  another 
of  the  night  courses  in  the  professional  schools 
of  the  local  colleges.  For  generations  they  did 
this,  often  studying  until  far  into  the  night ;  and 
the  next  day  they  stalled  on  their  jobs,  accom- 
plishing nothing,  slept  at  the  governmental 
switch,  from  exhaustion.  A  laudable  ambition 
theirs,  this  idea  of  working  up  to  the  ranks  of  the 
professional  men;  but  the  program  played  hob 
with  efficiency. 

Now  that  the  Berthas  and  Tillies  and  all  the 
rest  are  coming  back  to  tell  their  old-time  asso- 
ciates glorious  tales  of  war  jobs,  of  double  or 
triple  increase  over  their  former  wages,  vast 
crowds  of  the  hello-ladies  and  their  sister-work- 
ers in  other  lines  are  following  in  the  selfsame 
paths  blazed  long  ago  by  their  brothers  in  the 
government  clerical  service.  And  add  to  the  in- 
completeness of  telephone  equipment,  with  not 
even  enough  sleepy,  discontented  hello-ladies  to 
man  the  ancient  switch-boards,  a  sudden  and 
mighty  flood  of  unexpected  business  that  fills 

105 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

almost  every  telephone-booth  in  town  during  the 
crowded  hours  of  the  day,  and  the  result  is  chaos. 
Many  an  impatient  military  man  or  civilian  has 
been  compelled  to  hang  up  the  receiver  in  dis- 
gust and  deliver  personally  or  by  messenger  — 
if  he  be  fortunate  enough  to  get  a  messenger  — 
the  information  which  he  had  hoped  to  give  by 
telephone. 

A  government  exchange  which  takes  care  of 
department  calls  shows  more  efficiency,  but  even 
here  there  is  delay  at  times.  And  delay  on  the 
government  lines  in  days  like  these  is  cause  for 
concern  far  graver  than  the  mere  commercial 
troubles  of  the  district.  For  instance,  in  choos- 
ing a  site  for  the  War  College  some  transcenden- 
tal genius  had  the  brilliant  idea  that  it  should 
be  located  about  three  miles  southeast  of  the 
War  Department, —  oh,  on  simply  the  cutest 
water-front  spot  ever!  —  on  the  same  principle 
that  causes  the  field  captain  of  a  college  foot-ball 
team  always  to  go  off  by  himself  throughout  the 
big  game  of  the  season  to  another  foot-ball  field 
about  three  miles  away,  with  the  hope  of  finding 
a  telephone  line  over  which  he  can  give  his  sig- 
nals to  the  rest  of  his  far-away  team.  Four  of 
the  six  committees  into  which  the  army's  gen- 

106 


ALONG  THE  POTOMAC 

eral  staff — "  the  Brain  of  the  Army  " — is  divided 
are  located  in  the  War  College.  But  the  desk 
of  the  captain  of  the  whole  team,  the  Chief  of 
Staff  (who  popularly  is  pictured  in  the  public 
mind  as  seated  at  a  big  desk  while  surrounded 
by  his  staff,  all  working  together  on  mighty  war 
problems),  is  three  miles  away  in  the  War  De- 
partment. And  so  a  chief  of  staff  has  been 
known  to  work  steadily  at  a  problem  along  cer- 
tain lines  while  his  staff,  unacquainted  with  the 
chief's  way  of  progressing,  simultaneously  are 
tackling  the  knotty  question  along  diametrically 
different  lines.  The  Chief  and  his  Staff,  it  is 
true,  are  bound  together  by  three  miles  of  tele- 
phone wire,  but  to  be  connected  by  telephone, 
especially  in  days  of  war-whirling,  is  likely  as 
not  to  be  separated  by  telephone. 

"  The  people  must  economize  in  telephone  mes- 
sages,'' publicly  cries  the  telephone  officials  of 
the  capital.  They  do;  they  have  to.  " Don't  do. 
this,  and  don't  do  that,"  continue  the  harassed 
telephone  men,  adding  a  list  of  economically  de- 
vised "  Don'ts  "  which  fill  half  a  column  of  local 
newspapers.  "  Don'ts  "  that  are  not  even  hinted 
at  in  the  public  proclamations  might  have  been 
added :  "  Don't,  for  heaven's  sake !  call  for  '  In- 

107 


THE  WAK-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

formation '  in  the  hope  of  having  a  wrong  num- 
ber corrected.  What 's  the  use,  men?  So  many 
numbers  have  been  changed  so  often  lately  that 
1  Information '  has  been  sent  to  the  booby-hatch 
for  psychopathic  observation  and  a  complete 
mental  rest."  "  Don't  call  a  number  and  expect 
to  get  it."  "  Don't  add  to  the  general  delay  by 
following  the  dear  old  Southern  fashion  long  in 
vogue  in  Washington  —  the  fashion  which  pre- 
scribed that  one  should  drawl,  '  Aoh,  is  this  Cen- 
tral? Good  mawnin',  miss.  Ah  trust  you-all 
aw  enjoyin'  good  health  this  mawnin'.  Now  if 
Ah  ain't  troublin'  you-all  too  much,  may  Ah  ask 
you-all,  miss,  to  prepah  to  do  me  a  favah  in  yo' 
official  capacity?  Get  ready,  miss.  Ah  have  a 
numbah  all  ready  fo'  you-all.' ' 

Nope !  Speed !  more  speed !  It  is  the  estimate 
of  an  official  in  the  municipal  government  that 
Washington  "  as  a  general  thing  is  about  three 
times  as  active  as  it  was  before  the  war,  and  is 
showing  instances  where  business  men  not  en- 
gaged in  munitions  enterprises  or  other  activities 
directly  connected  with  the  war  are  doing  four 
times  as  much  business  as  formerly."  When  it 
comes  to  the  telephone,  that  official  is  sadly 
meticulous.  The  capital  has  become  so  busy,  in 

108 


ALONG  THE  POTOMAC 

fact,  that  the  city's  "  Northwest,"  which  from 
days  untold  believed  itself  to  be  the  whole  city, 
has  been  crowded  to  the  point  of  making  the 
astounding  discovery  that  there  really  is  a 
"  Northeast,"  not  to  mention  a  "  Southeast  "  and 
even  a  "  Southwest "  in  which  white  folks  actu- 
ally live,  expansive  stretches  long  thought  to  be 
as  mythical  as  Crocker  Land. 

And  the  feminine  shopper,  who  cries  "  darn 
it "  and  other  ladylike  oaths  when  she  finds  that 
the  telephone  service  cannot  get  her  in  touch 
with  a  given  bargain  sale  until  long  after  the 
last  of  the  marked-down  shirtwaists  or  more  inti- 
mate garments  have  been  sold,  often  is  tempted 
to  use  real  cuss  words  in  these  days  when  she 
sets  out  to  do  her  shopping  at  first  hand.  Early 
in  1918  the  department  stores  were  driven  to 
calling  loudly  upon  the  district  government  pow- 
ers to  help  them  out  of  the  tangle  in  which  the 
big  rush  had  tied  the  shopkeepers.  And  the  Dis- 
trict Defense  Council  responded  to  the  appeal  by 
establishing  a  set  of  rules  which  included,  among 
other  things,  orders  that  there  must  be  only  one 
delivery  of  goods  over  a  given  route  each  day, 
that  the  special  delivery  of  parcels  must  cease, 
that  merchandise  to  be  returned  must  be  brought 

109 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

back  to  the  shops  within  three  days,  that  a  de- 
posit must  be  made  on  all  C.  O.  D.  purchases, 
this  last  rule  being  designed  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
feminine  habit  of  ordering  C.  O.  D.  articles  by 
telephone. 

As  the  telephone  service,  so  in  a  way  is  the 
telegraph.  On  the  day  the  wife  and  I  started 
out  from  New  York  to  try  to  get  to  the  capital 
I  sent  a  telegram  from  Manhattan  to  a  Wash- 
ington address  in  the  late  forenoon.  It  was  de- 
livered in  Washington  twenty-two  hours  and  a 
half  later,  and  the  address  to  which  it  was  sent 
is  only  three  squares  from  the  main  office  of  the 
company  in  Washington.  When  the  telegram 
finally  caught  up  with  me  in  Washington  I  took 
it  to  a  gentleman  chewing  a  pen  in  an  office  of 
the  telegraph  company  and  bleated  loudly  in 
protest. 

"  I  can't  understand  it,"  he  said  with  a  sigh. 
"  Our  delivery  is  now  practically  normal." 

"  Oh,  you  call  twenty-two  hours  normal,  eh ! " 
I  cried  instantly,  and  I  '11  bet  that  crushed  him 
all  right,  all  right.  What? 

When  it  comes  to  the  gentle  art  of  real-estate 
dealings,  never  has  any  class  of  business  men 
been  driven  to  perplexity  so  great  as  these  same 

110 


ALONG  THE  POTOMAC 

Washington  real-estate  agents  when  it  comes  to 
solving  the  great  question  as  to  whether,  in  the 
matter  of  a  definition  of  war,  Sherman  was  right 
or  wrong.  The  real-estaters,  once  the  whole  land 
began  to  try  to  live  in  Washington,  could  have 
abandoned  themselves  to  a  perfect  orgy  of  rent- 
ing if  it  were  not  for  the  sad  fact  that  they  soon, 
found  themselves  with  nothing  left  to  rent. 
They  still  have  some  houses  to  sell,  and  all  the 
owners  ask  for  them  is  your  bank-book  as  a  first 
payment  and  then  whatever  gold-tooth  crowns, 
gold  fillings,  and  any  artificial  jaws  or  knee-capsi 
of  silver  which  your  family  surgeons,  dental  and 
plain,  may  have  stowed  away  in  your  anatomy 
from  time  to  time.  Then,  too,  a  paternal  Gov- 
ernment has,  since  the  war-time  overcrowding 
began,  invented  an  unexpected  vexation  for  the 
real-estate  brethren:  just  when  the  agent  has 
rented  the  last  vacant  apartment  or  office  build- 
ing and  settles  down  to  rake  off  his  commission 
from  the  rents,  along  comes  the  Government  with 
a  dispossession  notice.  "  Pack  up  and  git, 
folks,"  commands  the  Government.  "  We  've  de- 
cided to  commandeer  this  entire  building  and 
turn  it  into  offices  and  laboratories  to  an  advis- 
ory committee  of  the  Signal  Corps  that  is  cross- 
Ill 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

ing  parrots  with  carrier-pigeons  so  that  the  War 
Department  can  keep  in  touch  with  the  War  Col- 
lege at  all  times  without  depending  on  the  tele- 
phone. It 's  a  little  idea  of  the  War  Depart- 
ment's. Come,  come,  come,  pack  up !  This  way- 
out!"  And  bingo!  the  real-estate  man,  so  far 
as  that  office  building  or  apartment  house  is  con- 
cerned, again  is  out  of  a  job. 

"Put  up  more  buildings,"  say  you.  But  the 
builders  can't  get  materials,  what  with  priority 
certificates  of  the  gilt-edged  Grade  A  making  it 
compulsory  for  the  railroads  running  into  Wash- 
ington to  give  first  attention  to  delivering  build- 
ing stuffs  for  the  erection  of  far-spreading  shacks 
that  the  Government  sticks  up  over  night  to 
house  its  civil  and  military  increase  of  family. 
Furthermore,  who  's  going  to  try  to  get  building 
materials  for  new  edifices  when  the  cost  of  the 
material  is  about  forty  per  cent,  higher  than 
normal  prices? 

When  a  new  hotel  of  flossy  pretension  was 
being  rushed  to  completion  a  stone's  throw  west 
of  the  Willard,  the  owners  and  contractors  were 
on  the  verge  of  being  bogged  in  the  general 
swamping  of  business  conditions.  Happily  they 
suddenly  remembered  the  all  pervading  priority 

112 


"Sir,  I  kinnot  yet  you  that  mimbah,  being  as  the  line  is 
busy" 


ALONG  THE  POTOMAC 

certificates  issued  by  the  priority  committee  of 
the  Council  of  National  Defense.  Now,  here  was 
a  necessary  edifice  which  ought  to  be  finished  as 
soon  as  possible,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  that 
it  stands  as  close  to  the  Treasury  as  it  is  possible 
for  a  visiting  munition-contractor  to  get,  so  close 
that  a  contractor  fortunate  enough  to  get  a  room 
and  bath  in  that  hotel  can  doze  off  with  the  sweet 
realization  that  all  the  nation's  money  bins  are 
almost  directly  beneath  the  footboard  of  his  bed. 
And  inasmuch  as  almost  everything  in  the  manu- 
facturing line  is  now  listed,  has  got  itself  listed, 
in  the  Class  A  of  priorities, —  from  eighty  to 
eighty-five  per  cent. !  —  the  contractors  and  own- 
ers did  n't  see  why  materials  for  a  swagger  new 
hotel  shouldn't  get  in  on  the  preferred  list. 
Wherefore  they  asked  for,  and  obtained,  a  pri- 
ority certificate  which  entitled  them  to  the  posi- 
tive delivery  of  two  railway  cars  of  steel  and 
sundries  a  day,  and  work  on  the  new  hotel  went 
on  joyously.  At  the  time  I  was  in  Washington 
the  priority  committee,  having  got  almost  every- 
thing into  Class  A  —  which  left  affairs  about 
as  they  were  before  the  class  was  invented, — 
had  begun  all  over  again  by  thinking  up  a  Class 
AA  for  priority  certificates,  which  means  a  right 

113 


THE  WAR-WHIKL  IN  WASHINGTON 

of  way  over  even  the  delivery  of  mail  matter. 
As  more  and  more  articles  get  into  Class  AA 
it  will  be  a  simple  matter  to  begin  a  third  time 
and  designate  a  new  and  exclusive  Class  AAA, 
and  so  on  and  on  till  the  kaiser  is  licked  and 
we  're  all  back  to  normal  again. 

And  sad  to  say,  it  was  in  the  matter  of  issuing 
priority  certificates  that  the  only  slight  instance 
approaching  a  hint  of  graft  (always  excepting, 
of  course,  the  "  honest  graft "  of  the  profiteer, 
who  in  all  wars  and  all  ages  jumps  at  a  chance 
to  wring  blood-money  from  the  heart  of  a  suffer- 
ing motherland)  that  came  to  my  attention  in 
all  Washington  was  revealed.  A  man  secured 
a  priority  certificate  for  a  manufacturer  whose 
war  contracts  entitled  him  to  the  certificate,  the 
patriot  who  had  got  the  certificate  for  the  manu- 
facturer being  one  of  those  noble  souls  who  had 
closed  his  desk  for  the  nonce  back  home  largely 
with  the  idea  that  he  was  impressing  his  neigh- 
bors by  leaving  his  own  desk  in  order  "  to  go 
down  to  Washington  to  help  out  the  Govern- 
ment," 

"  By  the  way,"  said  the  volunteer  priority  pa- 
triot to  the  manufacturer  who  had  just  received 
a  certificate,  "  have  one  of  my  business  cards, 

114 


ALONG  THE  POTOMAC 

merely  so  you  '11  know  who  I  am  back  home  when 
I  'm  not  doing  this  work  of  helping  out  the  Gov- 
ernment." And  the  manufacturer  took  the  busi- 
ness card ;  but  a  moment  later,  while  passing  out 
of  the  building,  he  tore  it  up  and  angrily  threw 
the  scraps  away.  For  in  plain  United  States 
this  particular  priority  man,  in  manner  as  well 
as  act,  might  just  as  well  have  said  to  the  manu- 
facturer :  "  Here 's  my  name  and  business,  son ; 
and  always  remember  that  when  you  needed  a 
priority  certificate,  I  'm  the  little  bright  eyes  that 
got  it  for  you.  So  when  you  're  passing  my  place 
of  business  back  home  and  need  anything  in  my 
line,  you  might  show  your  appreciation  by  giving 
me  a  call.  Get  me?  " 

There 's  the  only  instance  approaching  ghoul- 
ishness  which  I  came  across  during  wanderings 
among  all  sorts  and  classes  of  the  grand  army 
of  war-workers  which  has  suddenly  descended 
upon  Washington,  and  the  instance  is  listed  here 
in  detail  because  it  is  so  small.  The  incident 
gives  cause  for  three  rousing  cheers  for  the  very 
reason  that  it  was  the  worst  that  could  be  un- 
covered in  all  that  wonderful  host  of  volunteers, 
despite  the  temptations  offered ;  an  army  of  civil- 
ian heroes  that  includes  the  best  of  brain  and 

115 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

energy  the  country  has  to  offer,  men  who  indi- 
vidually and  in  the  aggregate  daily  are  building 
for  a  "  dollar  a  year  "  a  record  of  unselfish  serv- 
ice and  honorable  devotion  that  will  loom  large 
even  among  all  the  glories  of  this  most  stupen- 
dous moment  of  the  world. 


116 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  TOWN   WITH   THE   TROLLEY   OFF 

EVEN  in  days  of  normality  no  one  would 
have  gone  so  far  as  to  say,  at  least  during 
the  evening  hour,  when  all  the  clerks  of  all  the 
department  buildings  were  headed  simultane- 
ously toward  the  suburban  residential  regions, 
that  an  average  Washington  surface-car  had  as 
many  vacant  seats  as  one  will  find,  say,  in  Con- 
gress on  any  hot  afternoon  that  Walter  Johnson 
is  scheduled  to  pitch  on  the  home  grounds.  But 
nowadays!  Well,  nowadays  in  the  rush  hours 
every  car  is  as  thoroughly  stuffed  as  a  Philadel- 
phia ballot-box  on  the  Sunday  before  the  Tues- 
day before  the  first  Monday  in  November.  It 's 
an  open  question  whether  or  not  even  a  machine 
election  captain  in  Philadelphia  could  have 
wedged  a  handful  of  phony  ballots  into  the  trol- 
ley-car which  the  wife  and  I  finally  boarded,  espe- 
cially after  we  had  merged  ourselves  into  the 
mass  of  standees. 

117 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

It  made  us  provincial  New  York  folk  home- 
sick for  the  comparative  comforts  of  one  of  those 
subway  expresses  due  to  stop  near  the  Grand 
Central  Station  a  few  minutes  before  the  five- 
fifteen  commutation  pulls  out  for  New  Rochelle 
on  Christmas  eve.  Also  our  conductor  had  an 
irritating  habit.  Every  time  the  car  stopped  to 
permit  still  another  nation-saver  to  horn  his  way 
upon  the  back  platform,  the  conductor,  himself 
wedged  hopelessly  among  a  solid  bulge  of  pa- 
triots sardined  into  the  forward  end  of  the  car, 
would  bellow  back  in  maddening  tones  to  ask  us 
whether  or  not  a  sufficient  quantity  of  the  new- 
est arrival's  anatomy  had  been  tucked  aboard  to 
permit  the  conductor  safely  to  give  the  starting 
signal  again. 

"Howzit?  Howzit?  Howzit?"  Thus  the 
conductor.  "Howzit  back  there?" 

"  Awful ! "  shrieked  the  wife  at  last  in  hysteric 
soprano.  "  If  you  must  know,  Conductor,  it 's 
ab-so-lute-ly  fierce ! " 

But  the  conductor  merely  went  on  conducting. 
As  we  inched  along  westward  through  F  Street 
he  contented  himself  with  steadily  demonstrating 
to  the  whole  class  that  it  must  have  been  a  silly 
old  soul  who  tried  to  make  an  axiom  of  physics 

118 


THE  TOWN  WITH  THE  TROLLEY  OFF 

out  of  the  absurd  proposition  that  two  bodies  of 
matter  cannot  occupy  the  same  space  in  the  same 
Mount  Pleasant  trolley-car  at  the  same  time. 
Moment  by  moment  the  wife  informed  me,  whis- 
pering the  while  between  a  right  ear  and  a  left- 
side whisker  belonging  to  two  total  strangers 
jammed  between  us,  that  if  the  crush  lasted  just 
a  second  longer  she  would  die.  Yea,  verily,  she 
said,  "  This  town  is  a  City  of  Magnificent  Dis- 
tances—  if  you  don't  have  to  travel  the  dis- 
tances." She  lent  variety  to  these  outbursts 
with  loud-spoken  protests  against  the  incredible 
time  it  was  taking  our  car  to  get  from  the  Union 
Station  to  the  general  neighborhood  of  the 
White  House. 

"  But  look,  dearie,  how  long  it  took  Bryan  to 
try  to  get  over  the  same  route,  and  him  never 
making  it  at  that,"  I  cried,  with  a  hearty  laugh. 
Thus  I  tried  to  dispel  her  gloom  with  merry  quip 
and  laughter.  And  the  best  I  got  for  my  efforts 
was  the  distinct  realization  that  if  she  could 
have  got  her  hands  out  of  the  human  jam  which, 
pinned  her  arms  and  hands  to  her  sides,  she 
would  have  reached  between  the  strange  ear  and 
side  whisker  that  separated  us  and  shaken  my 
short  back  hair  into  my  eyes. 

119 


THE  WAR- WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

We  managed  to  get  out  of  the  surface-car  not 
much  more  than  half  a  mile  beyond  our  little 
hotel  in  Fourteenth  Street.  To  debark  had 
merely  been  a  matter  of  beginning  a  drive  on 
our  sector  of  standing  room  in  the  car  down  near 
Twelfth  and  F  Streets.  Then  by  battling  our 
way  between  the  strange  side  whiskers,  the  un- 
familiar ears,  and  past  and  under  wholly  un- 
known elbows  and  shoulder-blades,  we  both 
emerged  through  a  second  growth  of  whiskers  at 
some  place  near  Dupont  Circle,  or  just  in  time  to 
catch  a  passing  Auto-To-Hire  that  landed  us 
back  near  Fourteenth  and  K  Streets  for  a  mere 
dollar. 

One  did  n't  have  to  move  from  the  lobby  of  the 
hotel  after  dinner  that  night  to  learn  what  every 
one  connected  with  the  war  was  or  was  not,  espe- 
cially was  not,  doing.  For  a  national  capital 
that  for  generations  has  been  the  Grand  Exalted 
City  of  Gossip  has,  once  the  war-whirl  began  to 
spin,  laboriously  set  about  the  work  of  collecting 
and  tabulating  the  most  extensive  and  intensive 
knowledge  of  things  that  are  not  true  to  be  found 
at  any  place  in  the  known  world.  Even  in  the 
normal  times  of  a  past  and  peaceful  generation 
one  could  always  pick  up  mighty  secrets  of  state 

120 


THE  TOWN  WITH  THE  TROLLEY  OFF 

for  the  mere  trouble  of  stopping  to  chat  with  any 
callow  government  clerk  within  range. 

Say,  listen!  Remember  young  Elmer  Hoosis, 
over  in  the  Agricultural  Department,  Jim? 
Well,  speaking  about  that  same  senator  you 
just  mentioned,  this  here  Elmer  Hoosis  has 
a  desk  right  next  to  a  feller  that  was  walking 
through  Thomas  Circle  one  night  late,  when  what 
does  this  feller  see  but  that  same  Senator  Baffing- 
phone  hisself  and  a  lot  of  other  swell  ladies  and 
gents  trying  to  climb  up  on  the  statue  to  give 
General  Thomas's  horse  a  bottle  of  champagne 
to  drink.  The  whole  bunch,  so  this  feller  who 
works  next  to  Elmer  Hoosis  says,  was  so  lit  that 
even  the  senator's  glass  eye  was  bloodshot.  And 
along  comes  a  cop  and  wades  into  the  bunch  and 
pulls  them  off  the  statue  and  everything,  and 
what  does  Senator  Baffingphone  do  but  up  and 
bite  the  cop  in  the  leg.  He  ought  to  be  run  out 
of  the  Senate,  that  guy.  And  he  beats  his  wife 
something  awful,  they  say.  Of  course,  Jim,  none 
of  this  stuff  gets  into  the  papers,  because  Elmer 
and  all  the  rest  of  us  fellers  connected  with  the 
Gove'ment  just  keep  it  to  ourselves. 

Thus  it  was  in  the  old  days.  But  now,  with 
the  onslaught  of  the  present  war  hullabaloo, 

121 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

these  are  the  happy  days  for  the  City  of  Gossip. 
One  does  n't  have  to  move  beyond  earshot  of  the 
nearest  hotel  lounge  —  the  wife  and  I  did  n't  — 
to  learn  on  the  authority  of  none  other  than  a 
stoutish  man  who  was  bulging  from  the  line  of 
beauty  on  a  lounge  in  the  lobby  that  this  here 
now  Food  Administrator,  Henry  Hoover,  or 
whatever  his  name  is,  has  his  own  home  packed 
with  barrels  and  shelves  of  food  like  he  was  a 
whole  farmer's  exhibit  at  a  county  fair.  Yep. 
Right  at  the  crack  of  the  first  gun,  muh  friend, 
what  does  this  Herb  Hoover,  or  whatever  his 
name  is,  do  but  pack  his  own  cellar  with  a  cuppla 
carloads  of  wheat,  another  car  of  puttatahs,  a 
cuppla  barrels  of  kippered  herring,  and  every- 
thing !  This  comes  straight,  friend,  from  a  niece 
of  mine  that 's  been  a  stenographer  in  the  Food 
Administration  ever  since  it  was  started.  Say, 
from  what  I  hear  that  guy  Hoover 's  got  his 
libery  shelves  stacked  with  more  custard  pies 
than  Charley  Chaplin  could  throw  at  Fatty  Ar- 
buckle  in  a  whole  seven-reel  fillum.  Yes,  in- 
deedy.  And  this  Fuel  Administrator,  Doc  Gar- 
field  !  Listen,  friend.  That  Garfield  guy  's  got 
a  private  stock  of  coal  that  fills  his  whole  darn 
cellar,  spreads  over  half  his  kitchen,  and  spills 

122 


THE  TOWN  WITH  THE  TROLLEY  OFF 

out  of  the  bath-tub  and  every  stationary  wash- 
tub  in  his  house.  Terrible,  ain't  it,  when  even 
the  White  House  didn't  have  enough  coal  the 
other  day  to  keep  the  place  warm.  Yep,  I  get  it 
straight  that  Doc  Garfield's  home  looks  like  it 
was  a  flash-light  of  the  w^hole  anthracite  base- 
ment floor  of  Scranton,  Pennsylvania.  And 
lemme  tell  you,  friend,  about  these  gents  that 
hollered  and  hollered  for  prohibition  till  they 
got  every  saloon  in  the  town  closed.  That 
crowd  's  got  enough  of  the  hard  stuff  hoarded 
away  to  float  a  new  Liberty  Loan.  I  'm  told  by 
a  man  who  had  ought  to  know  that  the  main 
squeeze  in  that  bunch  ain't  drew  a  sober  breath 
since  Grant  first  began  to  hang  around  Rich- 
mond. 

One  would  fancy  that  the  City  of  Gossip,  out 
of  its  rich  store  of  experience,  would  know  that 
these  and  similar  tales  quite  as  silly  are  —  well, 
silly.  But  not  the  City  of  Gossip!  It  is  on 
record  that  shortly  after  this  newest  explosion 
of  yarns  began  to  rip  through  the  capital  one 
intellectual  of  saffron  hue  among  Washington's 
city  editors  assigned  a  yellow-nosed  investigator, 
shortly  after  the  Food  Administrator  came  to 
town,  to  hang  round  the  tradesman's  entrance 

123 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

leading  to  the  Hoover  household  and  peer  into 
the  garbage-cans  as  they  were  carried  out  the 
back  door  each  day.  And  the  bright  young  man 
peered  so  long  and  unsuccessfully  to  try  to  find 
some  evidence  of  wastefulness  in  Mr.  Hoover's 
glistening  garbage-cans  that  the  shiny  glare  of 
the  cans  finally  caused  an  eye  strain,  which,  let 
us  hope,  is  nothing  trivial. 

Almost  all  of  the  gossipy  yarns  floating  the 
length  and  width  of  the  city  are  merely  amusing, 
but  sometimes  they  are  dangerous.  "Ain't  it 
terrible  about  Joe  Tumulty !  Yep,  they  're  say- 
ing all  over  town  that  they've  just  found  out 
he 's  a  German  spy,  and  they  whisked  him  off 
to  the  prison  in  Leavenworth  and  they  're  going 
to  line  him  up  against  a  blank  wall  right  away 
and  send  him  over  the  route !  And  do  you  know 
about  the  battle-ship  Pennsylvania  being  sunk 
abroad?  The  news  just  came  straight  from  a 
man  who  works  in  the  State,  War,  and  Navy 
building.  The  loss  of  life  was  terrible,  and  the 
hospital  in  the  New  York  Navy  Yard  is  all  filled 
up  now  with  the  wounded,  and  the  navy  won't 
let  even  the  mothers  of  the  poor  boys  into  the 
yard  to  see  their  dying  sons!  " 

124 


THE  TOWN  WITH  THE  TROLLEY  OFF 

Then  out  from  Washington  and  across  the  con- 
tinent rips  the  "  news,"  causing  anguish  to  the 
mother  of  every  sailor -boy  now  in  foreign  waters. 
The  fact  that  the  credulous,  as  likely  as  not,  may 
happen  upon  Mr.  Tumulty  on  his  way  to  lunch- 
eon half  an  hour  after  they  had  convinced  them- 
selves that  he  was  about  to  face  a  firing-squad 
out  in  Kansas,  does  not  keep  them  from  believ- 
ing the  next  wild  tale  that  floats  their  way.  So 
serious  were  the  effects  of  the  Tumulty  story  and 
the  yarn  about  the  "  sinking  "  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania that  the  secretary  to  the  President  and  the 
secretary  of  the  navy  respectively  were  compelled 
to  issue  public  statements  denying  each  rumor. 

Just  about  an  hour  of  this  strictly  confidential 
sort  of  "  news  "  being  hawked  the  length  of  the 
hotel  lobby  on  the  first  evening  we  had  been  able 
to  spend  beneath  a  Washington  hotel  roof  re- 
sulted in  the  feeling  that  too  much  was  plenty. 
Wherefore  toward  the  elevator  I  led  the  wife. 
Who  knows  but  that  if  we  had  sat  round  the 
lobby  long  enough  some  one  would  have  let  slip 
the  information  that  the  prexy  and  faculty  of 
the  War  College  were  shattering  all  the  ethics 
of  amateur  college  sport  by  grabbing  off  every 

125 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

National  League  professional  ball-player  drafted 
and  playing  them  on  the  War  College  varsity 
nine  under  fake  names. 

As  the  elevator  took  us  roomward  I  evolved 
a  plan  to  get  up  early  the  next  morning  and  buy 
a  pair  of  those  good-dollar  breakfasts  now  being- 
sold  in  Washington  at  prices  ranging  from  two 
to  two  and  a  half  dollars  each.  Then  we  would 
stroll  toward  the  Capitol.  Doubtless  it  would 
be  of  much  benefit  to  a  wife,  given  overmuch  to 
carping  criticism,  to  sit  for  an  afternoon  in  the 
impressive  half-light  of  the  house  galleries;  to 
sit  there  and  gaze  down  upon  and  listen  to  the 
mighty,  dignified  statesmen  on  the  floor  below; 
listen  and  absorb,  until  the  great  throbbing  of 
patriotic  emotion  welling  within  her  should  send 
her,  panting  uncontrollably,  out  into  the  twilit 
evening  air.  And  we  did  breakfast  together  as 
planned,  but  perforce  we  began  on  our  grape 
fruit  long,  long  after  we  had  given  our  initial 
breakfast  order  to  a  waiter  who  was  transcenden- 
tally  the  haughty  personification  of  permanent 
Washington's  acute  resentment  to  labor.  One 
could  not  blame  him  greatly,  inasmuch  as  he  had 
four  crowded  breakfast-tables  besides  our  own 
to  look  after.  But  we  did  begin  to  feel  unkindly 

126 


THE  TOWN  WITH  THE  TROLLEY  OFF 

toward  him  when,  after  disappearing  with  our 
list  of  breakfast  dishes,  he  either  enlisted  or  was 
drafted.  Finally  we  were  able  to  flag  a  captain 
of  waiters,  also  haughty,  but  not  too  proud  to 
take  our  order  all  over  again  and  personally  peel 
the  boiled  eggs. 

But  as  we  hurried  out  to  meet  the  air  the 
clock  in  the  lobby  showed  that  we  had  spent  so 
much  time  paging  our  waiter,  our  breakfast 
had  n't  been  served  to  us  until  it  was  almost  time 
for  luncheon.  All  thought  of  strolling  a  mile 
or  so  to  the  Capitol  had  to  be  put  aside.  Along 
came  an  Auto-To-Hire,  and  we  saw  it  first. 

"  To  Congress,  Jesse  James,"  I  said  simply  to 
the  taxibandit.  And  we  were  off  toward  the 
House  —  a  House  divided  against  itself,  but,  so 
I  felt  as  we  began  to  rattle  helter-skelter  down 
Fourteenth  Street,  so  brimful  of  patriotism  that 
the  wife,  I  knew,  was  about  to  experience  the  first 
great  thrill  of  her  thoughtless  young  life. 


127 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  EAGLE   CHIRPS 

O^E  might  have  known  that  the  taxibandit 
at  the  tiller  was  one  of  those  Philadelphia 
brigands  who  had  just  driven  his  car  'cross-coun- 
try from  Broad  and  Chestnut  streets  the  day  be- 
fore in  order  to  be  in  on  the  Washington  war- 
time pickin's,  and  therefore  had  n't  the  slightest 
notion  where  Congress  convened.  He  was  all 
that,  also  he  was  of  a  nature  too  sensitive,  seem- 
ingly, to  ask  for  directions;  and  so  he  lit  right 
out  and  slambanged  down  the  Fourteenth  Street 
incline  to  "  the  avenue,"  crossed  the  town's  great 
aorta  instead  of  turning  east  into  it,  and  never 
slowed  up  until  he  had  zipped  eastward  for  half 
a  dozen  blocks  along  B  Street,  S.  W.  There  he 
stopped  in  front  of  a  big  brick  building  that 
stretched  the  length  of  an  ocean-liner  of  the  first 
class. 

Now  I,  even  I,  knew  that  Congress  had  always 
128 


arc  the  happy  days  for  the  C'ity  of  Gossip 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

done  its  nation-saving  in  a  spreading  Capitol  of 
marble  and  much  sandstone  painted  white. 
Still,  what  with  all  the  rest  of  the  fast  shiftings 
about  and  fancy-footed  shadow-boxing  that  now 
make  every  day  in  Washington  moving-day,  per- 
haps the  House  and  the  Senate  had  called  a 
couple  of  moving-vans  also,  and  had  staked  a 
new  claim  within  the  hollows  of  the  big  brick 
edifice  that  Jesse  James  had  taken  us  to.  Then 
came  to  mind  then  and  there  the  authentic  case 
where  one  governmental  bureau  within  the  previ- 
ous six  months  had  moved  all  its  office  forces  and 
furniture  exactly  six  times,  the  directors  of  that 
and  similar  bureaus,  far-seeing  though  they  were, 
having  moved  each  time  into  offices  four  feet 
wider  because  no  one  had  been  decent  enough  to 
tell  them  that  the  war  might  continue  through- 
out the  entire  week  to  come,  and  therefore  cause 
a  progressive  expanding  of  business  up  to  the 
point  of  backing  up  the  furniture  van  once  again 
the  first  of  the  following  month.  Who  knows 
but  that  Congress  had  outgrown  the  Capitol 
also? 

"  So  this  is  where  Congress  hangs  out  now, 
eh?"  I  remarked  to  Jesse  James  as  he  lined  us 
up  beside  the  roadway  and  relieved  me  of  the  con- 

129 


THE  WAK-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

tents  of  my  wallet.  And  as  we  wandered  toward 
the  entrance,  Jesse  nodded  an  affirmative  in  a 
shamefaced  way  before  stepping  on  his  flivver 
pedals  and  clacking  off  toward  another  hold-up. 
Two  lettered  legends,  one  on  each  side  of  an 
inner  entrance,  gave  us  pause.  Evidently  the 
hands  with  index-fingers,  one  pointing  east  and 
the  other  west,  that  decorated  each  sign,  re- 
spectively, indicated  which  was  the  Senate  wing 
and  which  the  House.  In  turn  we  inspected  the 
signs.  The  first  one  read : 

SOUTH  EAST  EANGE 

(Turn  to  Left) 
Osteological  Collection 

"  O-s-t-e-o — "  I  began.  "  Why,  that  means 
bone  and  solid  ivory  and  things  like  that,"  I 
cried;  and  as  I  hastened  toward  the  more  osten- 
tatious sign,  which  at  first  glance  I  had  taken  for 
granted  showed  the  way  to  the  Senate,  the  wife 
laughed  right  out  loud.  For  only  a  moment  I 
was  nonplussed  by  the  wording  on  the  second 
sign-board : 

130 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 
SOUTH  WEST  RANGE 

(Turn  to  Eight) 
American  Stratigraphic  Series 

of  Rocks  and  Fossils 

Also  Systematic  Series  of 

Invertebrate  Fossils 

"  Holy  mackerel ! "  The  truth  had  dawned 
upon  me.  "  Here  I  ask  that  fat-headed  chauf- 
feur to  take  us  to  the  House  and  Senate,  and 
what  does  he  do  but  dump  us  off  at  the  National 
Museum's  collection  of — " 

"  Bone,  solid  rock,  spineless  fish,  concrete  and 
solid  ivory,"  crooned  the  wife,  happily.  "  Do 
you  know,  dearie,  there 's  the  first  chauffeur  I  've 
ever  seen  who  approaches  genius.  I  trust  you 
tipped  him  accordingly.  Come,  let 's  hurry  into 
the  '  South  West  Range '  first  and  give  the  Sen- 
ate the  once  over." 

Now  this  was  no  slangy,  flippant  way  to  ap- 
proach the  august  presence  of  the  nation's  Con- 
gress; but  I  took  a  firm  grip  on  my  temper,  my 

131 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

tongue,  and  my  wife's  arm,  and  silently  I  led 
her  eastward  through  the  Mall  for  a  mile,  then 
up  a  hill,  and  into  the  House  wing  of  the  Capitol. 
Now  the  wife  would  see  what  she  would  see.  I 
would  show  her,  or,  to  be  more  modest,  I  and 
Congress  would  show  her. 

It  so  happened  that  we  had  struck  a  compara- 
tively dull  day  in  the  House,  as  days  go  now 
round  the  Capitol.  The  final  vote  on  the  na- 
tional suffrage  amendment  to  the  Constitution 
was  the  only  idea  on  the  congressional  mind  that 
day,  but,  taking  things  by  and  large,  it  was  a 
fairish  average  day  for  the  wife  to  see.  My 
heart  began  to  pump  excitedly  upon  approach- 
ing this  great  body  of  representatives  who,  as  I 
explained  to  the  wife  as  we  crowded  into  one  of 
the  Capitol  elevators,  for  a  salary  not  so  very 
much  greater  than  they  might  be  making  back 
home  as  country  lawyers,  had  listened  to  the  call 
of  the  people  and  unselfishly  had  come  to  Wash- 
ington not  only  to  labor  day  and  night  to  save 
the  nation,  but  to  submit  gracefully  also  to  the 
stern  mandate  of  the  Federal  law  which  stipu- 
lates that  each  congressman  must  accept  sixty 
copies  of  "  The  Congressional  Record "  every 
day! 

132 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

There  was  little  to  attract  attention  when  the 
wife  and  I  arrived  on  a  level  with  the  corridor 
entrances  to  the  Family  Circle  tier  of  seats  in 
the  House.  Almost  nothing  was  going  on  except 
that  Billy  Sunday  was  opening  the  session  with 
prayer,  and  House  stenographers  were  breaking 
lead-pencils  and  finger-nails  and  fountain-pens 
trying  to  keep  abreast  of  Billy's  prayer,  and 
women  standees  were  bulging  outward  into  the 
corridors  all  the  way  round  the  string  of  Family 
Circle  entrances,  and  back  of  these  was  an  over- 
flow of  still  more  women  clamoring  to  get  in  as 
madly  as  if  Doug'  Fairbanks  and  Charley  Chap- 
lin wrere  chatting  on  the  floor  of  the  House  with 
Mary  Pickford  and  Theda  Bara,  and  Speaker 
Champ  Clark  was  flashing  for  the  first  time  a 
new  pearl-gray  suit  decorated  at  the  lapel  with  a 
rose  of  saffron  hue  in  honor  of  the  occasion,  and 
outside  House  attendants  had  taken  all  the 
beaded  knitting-bags  away  from  the  women  who 
had  arrived  early  enough  in  the  earliest  morning 
to  find  seats  inside,  and  the  knitting-bags  had 
been  heaped  in  piles  waist-high  in  the  corridors, 
because  it 's  against  the  law  to  carry  any  bundles 
or  packages  of  bombs  into  the  House  during  war- 
times, and  Sculptor  Gutson  Borglum,  after  wan- 

133 


THE  WAK-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

dering  accidentally  into  the  Statuary  Hall  of  the 
Capitol  and  getting  one  quick  glimpse  at  the 
Sculptural  Chamber  of  Horrors,  was  fleeing  with 
wild  screams  of  terror  through  the  corridors,  and 
even  louder  than  the  Borglum  yells  arose  distant 
thunderings  of  oratorical  impressiveness  as  vari- 
ous representatives  hit  the  high  spots  of  forensic 
fervor,  and  a  gavel  was  banging  and  banging 
afar  off,  and  somebody  was  intoning  terrifically 
about  the  "  b-r-r-r-road  and-ah  beeounteous  pa- 
rairees,  gen-tul-mun,  of  thee  great- tuh  and  gu- 
lorias  State-tuh  which  I  have  thee  honor  to  rep- 
reesent-tuh  in  this-ah  dis-ting-wished  uh-sem- 
foludge,"  and  a  reporter  cub  padding  along  behind 
us  hurriedly  was  balling  a  metaphor  all  up  by 
asking  his  companion,  "  Who 's  the  old  goat  bray- 
ing on  the  floor  now,  Larry?  "  and  some  one  was 
banging  and  hollering,  "  The  Chair  reck-ah-nizes 
thee  gnlmn  from  Mizzooree,"  and  a  large  lady 
whose  back  hair  was  undecided  was  shoving  along 
on  tiptoe  and  panting,  "  I  ?m  suffickating,  Emmy, 
but  I  '11  go  to  my  grave  happy  if  I  can  only  get 
just  a  glimpse  of  Jeanette  Rankin,"  and  the 
newspaper  telegraph  instruments,  down  the  cor- 
ridor toward  the  Press  Gallery,  were  sending  the 
news  to  the  sistern  in  far-away  States  amid  a 

134 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

chorus  of  clickings  like  the  seven-year  plague  of 
crickets,  and  the  gavel  was  banging  again,  and 
some  one  was  shouting  dramatically  in  purest- 
South  Bostonese,  "  This  democracy  cawnnot 
exist  hawf  free  awnd  hawf  female,"  and  a  woman 
fainted  in  the  crush  and  was  laid  out  across  one 
of  the  piles  of  knitting-bags,  and  somebody  ar- 
rived with  ice-water  for  the  fainting  lady  just  as 
we  had  biffed  our  way  close  enough  to  a  door  to 
hear  a  logically  intensive  bit  of  debate  that  ran : 

"  Does  the  genelmn  from  Cuhnetcut  object?  " 

"  I  ruh-zerve  the  right  to  objec'." 

"  But  does  the  genelmn  from  Cuhnetcut  ob- 
ject?'7 

"  I  ruh-peat,  I  ruh-zerve  the  right  to  objec'." 

"  But  does  the  genelmn  object  or  does  he  not 
object?  " 

"  I  ruh-peat  again,  I  ruh-zerve  the  right." 

"  Will  the  genelmn  answer  yes  or  no,  does  he 
object?  " 

"  I  ruh-zerve  the  — : 

"  Does  the  genelmn  — " 

"  I  ruh-zerve  — " 

"  Does  the  — " 

«  I  ruh  — " 

"Does—  " 

135 


THE  WAR- WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

"  I  — "    Et  ceterah-rah-rah ! 

I  tingled  with  the  glory  of  it  all,  even  with  the 
thrill  of  these  far  snatches  of  statesmanship 
coming  from  the  hearts  and  the  souls  and  the 
lungs  of  famous  patriots  whom  so  far  I  could  not 
so  much  as  glimpse.  At  last  I  was  where  the 
war  actually  was  being  won!  Not  a  second  of 
the  great  crisis  of  world  crises  was  being  wasted 
by  these  great  statesmen,  who  persistently  and 
steadily  wrere  gripping  Time  himself  by  his  hoary 
old  whiskers  and  swiftly  with  savage  oratory 
were  winning  the  awful  fight.  Ah,  if  little 
Freddy  Harper  and  the  other  lads  represented  by 
the  four  stars  on  the  service  flag  proudly  floating 
in  a  window  of  our  wool -sponging  place  in  lower 
Broadway  were  only  here  —  thus  my  thoughts 
ran  as  the  mighty  struggle  to  win  the  war  went 
on  and  on  just  beyond  the  massed  mobs  of  women 
fighting  to  get  into  the  Family  Circle ;  if  Freddy 
and  his  bunkies  could  only  step  out  of  the  ice- 
water  in  wThich  they  were  standing  knee-deep  in 
the  trenches  of  France,  waiting,  waiting,  could 
but  look  upon  and  listen  to  this  splendid  and  un- 
selfish battle  being  waged  on  the  floor  of  the 
House  to  win  the  suffrage  vote  at  the  next  con- 
gressional elections  and  thereby  win  the  war! 

136 


To  be  here  in  the  Capitol,  if  only  for  a  moment, 
would  hearten  Freddy  Harper  and  his  little  band 
of  machine-gun  lads  with  the  thought  that  they 
were  ever  in  the  mind  of  a  great  people's  chosen 
representatives.  And,  contented,  they  would  go 
back  to  their  trenches,  and  the  memory  of  this 
wondrous  scene  as  it  came  to  them  again  during 
the  long,  cold  nights  in  France  would  make  them 
forget  their  loneliness  and  the  heart  chill  and  the 
choke  of  homesickness  for  a  sight  again  of  the 
bronze  Liberty  girl  standing  high  on  her  pedestal 
in  good  old  New  York  Bay,  torch  held  far  into  the 
blackness,  like  another  mother  of  the  story-books, 
who  nightly  puts  a  lamp  in  the  window  for  her 
boy  who  has  been  gone  a  long,  long  time,  but 
surely  will  come  back  to  her  again. 

Every  day  those  lads  abroad,  every  one  of  them, 
should  receive  a  copy  of  "  The  Congressional 
Record  "  in  order  that  they  might  kill  time,  while 
lolling  around  the  trenches  doing  nothing,  by 
poring  over  its  pages.  Thus  they  would  have 
implanted  in  their  minds  each  day  a  concrete  un- 
derstanding of  the  constancy  with  which  the 
Congress  was  standing  by  them,  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  of  the  unselfish  zeal  with  which  the 
chosen  spokesmen  of  the  people  in  the  homeland 

137 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

were  fighting  with  them,  inch  by  inch,  always  and 
ever,  toward  victory.  I  think  of  this  as  I  glance 
through  the  pages  of  the  copy  of  the  "  Record  " 
lying  beside  me  as  I  write,  with  its  half  hundred 
pages  of  closely  printed  type  that  preserve  for  all 
time  the  burning  words  and  sounding  phrases 
that  were  uttered  on  the  historic  day  that  the 
wife  and  I  leaned  against  the  noise  coming  out 
toward  us.  So  great  was  my  emotion  that  day 
that  I  know  I  should  not  now  be  able  to  recall 
with  precision  even  the  few  bits  and  snatches  we 
were  able  to  hear,  Avere  it  not  for  the  stenographic 
report  in  the  "  Record  "  now  before  me. 

Beat  by  beat  come  the  heart-throbs  of  a  nation 
in  anguish : 

"Do  I  understand  that  the  gentleman's  request  for 
unanimous  consent  goes  to  the  extent  of  ordering  the 
previous  question  on  the  rule,  so  as  to  cut  out  the 
offering  of  the  amendment  to  the  rule  ? "  ' '  It  does. ' ' 
"Then  I  object."  "The  gentleman  from  Florida  ob- 
jects." "I  move  the  previous  question  on  the  reso- 
lution." "If  the  gentleman  from  Illinois  controls 
the  time  for  the  rule  and  the  gentleman  from  Tennes- 
see controls  the  time  against  it,  this  side  of  the  House 
is  without  time."  "May  I  ask  if  the  gentleman  will 
yield  some  of  his  time  to  this  side  of  the  house?" 
"Certainly;  I  had  made  promises  for  more  time  but 

138 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

I  will  see  that  that  side  gets  an  equal  division  of  the 
time."  "Will  the  gentleman  yield  ten  minutes  to 
this  side?"  "Yes."  "Mr.  Speaker,  I  understand 
that  it  is  settled  now  that  I  have  twenty  minutes 
under  my  control.  Is  that  correct?"  "I  do  not  un- 
derstand that  the  proposition  was  that  the  gentleman 
from  Tennessee  should  have  twenty  minutes."  "I 
am  entitled  to  that  time  under  the  general  rule." 
' '  For  what  purpose  does  the  gentleman  from  Virginia 
rise?"  "To  see  what  has  become  of  my  time."  "It 
has  gone."  "I  had  three  minutes  left."  "I  know 
the  gentleman  would  have  three  minutes  left  if  it  was 
not  for  the  clock."  "Now,  what  does  the  gentleman 
from  Virginia  want?"  "I  just  wanted  my  time." 
(Prolonged  laughter.) 

So  for  a  long,  long  time  they  talked  inspiringly 
about  how  much  time  they  would  have  to  talk. 
If  I  could  but  be  down  there  with  them  on  that 
floor,  fighting,  fighting,  side  by  side  with  them 
as  they  gave  their  very  life's  breath  to  speed  np 
the  war  so  that  Freddy  and  all  the  Freddies  early 
could  come  home  again !  Here  was  efficiency  in 
fighting,  with  no  thought  of  self,  surely  with  no 
thought  of  infusing  the  pettiness  of  party  politics 
at  so  serious  a  moment  in  the  nation's  history; 
no  flippancy,  but  only  the  pure  voice  of  a  great 
people  clamoring  for  the  swift  victory  for  their 

139 


THE  WAK-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

suffering  boys  in  France.  Shameful,  I  could  see 
now,  were  the  stories  going  about  that  morning 
to  the  effect  that  Democrats  and  Eepublicans  at 
a  time  like  this  intended  to  devote  every  precious 
moment  of  that  whole  war-time  day  trying  to 
"put  the  other  side  in  the  hole"  politically. 
Creatures  walked  through  those  Capitol  corridors 
who  were  low  enough  even  to  say  outright  that 
a  delegation  of  party  politicians  only  the  day  be- 
fore had,  in  their  extremity,  influenced  a  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  by  running  to  him  and 
pleading  with  him  at  the  last  moment,  to  shove 
aside  his  tremendous  war  burdens  so  that  he  too 
might  play  party  politics  by  coming  out  with  a 
petty  partizan  plea  for  suffrage  in  order  to  in- 
fluence the  voters  to  vote  the  Democratic  ticket 
in  the  November  election  to  come.  How  silly 
were  such  insinuations,  so  I  thought,  against  the 
people  and  their  representative  leaders,  my  lead- 
ers, when  long  ago  all  the  other  fighting  nations 
of  the  world  —  Germany,  Austria,  England, 
France,  Belgium,  Italy,  all  —  had  set  aside  party 
politics  as  childish  things  that  should  not,  could 
not,  intrude  themselves  at  a  moment  when  the 
World  War  demanded  the  concentrated  thought 

140 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

of  all  that  was  best  in  all  politics  and  statesman- 
ship if  a  nation  were  to  prevail. 

And  so  the  gossip  floating  about  was  just  silly ; 
it  could  n't  be  possible  that  our  wondrous  nation, 
of  all  the  countries  on  earth,  alone  could  be  giv- 
ing thought  to  petty  political  advantages,  alone 
of  all  the  world  could  be  insane  enough  to  try  to 
conduct  the  war  from  the  point  of  view  of  miser- 
able party  politics.  It  was  time  such  stories 
ceased.  Why,  I  had  even  heard  a  white-haired 
officer  of  the  American  Army,  bronzed  by  a  life 
spent  in  the  winds  and  sun  of  experience  and 
noted  far  and  wide  among  military  scientists  as 
one  of  the  most  thorough  students  of  his  calling 
living  to-day,  heatedly  make  the  accusation, 
again  and  again,  that  "  rotten  party  politics  are 
responsible  for  the  thrusting  aside  of  a  soldier 
who  not  only  has  the  finest  mind  in  all  our  army, 
but  pretty  close  to  the  best  mind  we  ever  had  in 
our  army."  I  had  laughed,  feeling  sorry  for  him 
and  his  fatuity  even  as  I  laughed. 

"  But  it 's  true,"  the  officer  had  stormed. 
"  Out  of  a  hundred  million  people  he  was  the 
only  American  who,  within  a  few  weeks  after 
Germany  spilled  into  Belgium,  did  not  content 

141 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

himself  with  saying  that  the  United  States  pos- 
sibly would  get  mixed  up  actively  in  the  war  in 
Europe,  who  didn't  even  rest  with  saying  that 
probably  we  would  get  into  it;  he  said  from  the 
first  in  a  quiet,  certain  way  to  those  who  should 
be  told  —  and  that  includes  the  whole  Washing- 
ton crowd  —  that  we  could  not  possibly  keep  out 
of  the  war.  They  laughed  at  him.  Then,  when 
no  one  else  would  do  anything,  he  started  in  to 
do  all  that  an  officer  in  the  army  dared  initiate 
in  the  way  of  preparedness.  He  evolved  the 
Plattsburg  idea.  He  knew  that  Bryan's  boast  of 
'  a  million  men  springing  to  arms  between  sun- 
rise and  sunset '  was  blithering  bosh,  and  that  if 
such  an  army  did  arise  miraculously,  it  would, 
without  officers  to  direct  it,  be  a  worthless  mob. 
And  no  one  in  all  Washington  would  begin  to 
train  the  officers,  so  he  took  a  first  batch  of  raw 
material  to  Plattsburg  and  taught  them  the  rudi- 
ments of  the  game.  Then  as  senior  general  in 
the  army  he  was  influential  enough  to  hammer 
the  lunkheads,  who  should  have  been  helping  his 
work  along,  but  were  n't,  into  lending  some  gov- 
ernmental assistance,  and  he  trained  more  and 
more  raw  boys  into  the  groundwork  of  soldier- 
ing. Members  of  his  staff  did  a  lot  of  the  actual 

142 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

work,  but  he  was  always  personally  on  the  job 
at  Plattsburg  and  at  the  other  camps  that  arose 
as  a  result  of  his  Plattsburg  idea. 

"  But  all  the  time  he  was  getting  in  bad  by 
indirectly  criticizing  the  department ;  not  that  he 
ever  criticized  directly,  but  by  preaching  and 
practising  preparedness  when  the  Government 
was  doing  nothing  he  hurt  a  lot  of  feelings.  If 
it  were  not  for  him,  we  'd  have  gone  into  this  war 
even  worse  off  than  we  were  and  are.  Did  the 
politicians  show  any  appreciation?  Shucks! 
He  happens  to  be  a  Republican.  He  was  even 
'  prominently  mentioned '  at  the  Chicago  conven- 
tion of  1916  for  a  few  minutes  as  a  Presidential 
possibility.  If  he  ever  came  back  from  France 
after  having  served  his  country  there  with  the 
ability  that  his  political  enemies  knew  he  would 
display,  he  ?d  be  in  danger  of  being  nominated  to 
head  the  Republican  national  ticket  at  the  sub- 
sequent Presidential  election.  Probably  he 
would  be  elected.  And  so  when  we  went  to  war 
and  needed  his  great  services  as  never  before, 
they  put  the  rollers  under  him.'' 

I  had  argued  it  out  with  the  learned  army  man, 
I  remembered  as  the  wife  and  I  stood  in  the 
Capitol  corridor  trying  to  hear  the  House;  had 

143 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

insisted  to  the  army  man  that  he  must  be  mis- 
taken, until  he  jumped  from  his  chair  angrily  and 
had  left  me.  But  whatever  misgivings  he  may 
have  aroused  within  me  that  day,  they  were  all 
dispelled,  blown  away,  by  the  noble  vocables  aris- 
ing from  the  floor  of  the  House.  Where  the  army 
man  had  caused  me  uneasiness  by  his  hard  mar- 
shaling of  incidents,  the  patriots  of  the  Congress 
caused  me  to  gulp  with  patriotic  emotion.  Word 
for  word,  thanks  to  the  stenographic  report  of 
the  day's  session  printed  in  "  The  Congressional 
Record  "  before  me,  I  repeat  here  the  sentences 
and  strings  of  sentences  that  came  out  to  us  as 
the  door  near  which  we  stood  was  opened  and 
closed,  closed  and  opened.  Now  would  come 
refutation,  so  I  whispered  to  the  wife,  of  the 
stories  of  the  low  gossipers  who  could  accuse  even 
the  country's  ordained  representatives  of  forget- 
ting the  war  while  they  squabbled  for  partizan 
place  and  power. 

Again  the  door  beyond  the  mob  in  front  of  us 
was  pushed  open  for  some  moments,  held  open 
for  at  least  a  little  while  by  the  press  of  humans 
against  it.  We  cupped  our  ears  and  listened  : 

"Mr.  Speaker,  for  five  long  months  I  gave  the  best 
that  was  in  me  physically  and  mentally,  and  cheer- 

144 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

fully  gave  several  thousand  dollars  of  my  individual 
funds,  for  Democratic  victory  in  my  State.  I  was 
deeply  grateful  that  Kentucky  rolled  up  her  biggest 
majority  in  thirty  years  for  the  Democratic  ticket. 
1 — "  [Door  closed.  Opened  again.] 

"The  chair  recognizes — " 

"It  was  my  privilege  yesterday  afternoon  to  be 
one  of  a  committee  of  twelve  to  ask  the  President  for 
advice  and  counsel  (laughter)  on  this  important 
measure."  (Prolonged  laughter.) 

"If  this  resolution  is  defeated  to-day  the  country 
will  understand  whom  to  hold  responsible — one  sec- 
tion of  the  country  controlling  the  Democratic 
Par—" 

"It  was  known  by  the  committee  that  went  to  see 
the  President  that  the  Republicans  were  going  to 
take  this  matter  up  and  pass  it  in  caucus,  was  it  not  ? ' ' 

"I  want  to  say  this:  Without  the  votes  of  the 
Democratic  Members  from  California,  the  Speaker 
would  not  be  in  the  Chair.  And  I  want  to  say  fur- 
ther to  the  Members  on  the  Democratic  side  that  the 
returns  indicated  two  hours  before  we  closed  our  polls 
in  the  West  that  the  President  was  defeated — " 

"Mr.  Speaker  and  Members  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, a  little  more  than  400  years  ago  Colum- 
bus discovered  America." 

"What  the  State  of  Iowa  needs  worse  than  any- 
thing else  is  a  lot  of  first  class  political  funerals 
among  their  Members  of  Congress  and  State  legis- 
lature." (Prolonged  laughter.) 

145 


THE  WAR- WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

Unsatisfactory  as  it  was  to  stand  there  and 
get  only  drabs  of  sentences  and  paragraphs,  a 
sentence  or  phrase  or  paragraph  as  the  door  was 
opened  or  closed  again,  the  wife  and  I  realized  — 
I  'in  sure,  at  least,  that  I  did  —  from  the  very 
fervency  of  the  debate  that  some  mighty  issue  of 
a  war-stricken  land  was  at  stake.  Just  what 
they  were  debating  about  I  could  not,  of  course, 
tell.  Sometimes,  so  I  noted  between  door-swing- 
ings, the  question  of  who  had  discovered  America 
seemed  to  be  at  issue,  but  again  they  would  swing 
four  hundred  years  forward  and  go  into  learned 
and  lengthy  dissertations  on  the  political  history 
of  Kentucky,  Iowa,  or  any  of  several  States  dur- 
ing the  latest  national  campaign.  Then  there 
was  an  instant  hush  in  the  hubbub  coming  from 
the  women  standees  massed  around  us  as  again 
the  door  swung  open  long  enough  to  enable  us  to 
realize  that  still  another  speaker  was  dwelling 
upon  the  many  excellences  of  the  lady  from  Mon- 
tana, Miss  Rankin.  Doubtless  the  speaker  was 
extoling  some  fine  bit  of  statesmanship  which 
Miss  Rankin  had  contributed  to  the  all-im- 
portant, the  only  important,  work  of  speeding  up 
the  war.  Unfortunately,  the  door  remained  open 
only  long  enough  to  enable  us  to  hear  only  one 

146 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

sentence  of  the  orator's  appreciation  of  Miss 
Rankin's  efforts  to  aid  her  warring  America : 

"The  lady  from  Montana  has  introduced  a  joint 
resolution  in  this  House  recognizing  the  right  of  Ire- 
land to  home  rule. ' ' 

The  door  was  closed  before  I  could  readjust  my 
mind  from  Columbus's  discovery  to  the  political 
situation  in  Iowa  and  then  over  to  Ireland. 
Then  for  a  long  time  the  sentences  came  dribbling 
out  to  us  as  the  door  swung  back  and  forth,  all  of 
us  waiting  patiently  during  the  rapidly  recurring 
intervals  of  comparative  silence  for  the  door  to 
open  again  long  enough  to  permit  us  to  hear  a 
paragraph  more : 

"I  know  there  are  a  great  many  patriotic  women 
in  the  State  of  Ohio  who  are  able  to  cast  just  as  .in- 
telligent a  vote  as  any  Member  of  this  body,  but  our 
party  platform  is  against  it.  So  until  that  barrier  is 
raised  I  shall  vote  against  this  amendment." 

"It  is  passing  strange,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  the  Pres- 
ident should  so  suddenly  change  his  mind  on  this 
proposition.  I  will  not  say  that  he  changed  it  because 
he  foresaw  that  this  (Republican)  side  of  the  House 
was  going  to  vote  almost  unanimously  for  it  and  tried 
to  beat  us  to  it,  but  it  certainly  is  a  rather  funny  pro- 
ceeding. Surely,  if  Woodrow  Wilson  can  change  his 
mind  over  night  and  get  by  with  it — " 

147 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

"Mr.  Speaker,  I  do  not  believe  that  the  President 
should  be  so  severely  arraigned  and  criticised  as  he 
has  been  to-day  for  having  yesterday  afternoon  by 
means  of  his  self -arranged  newspaper  publicity,  got- 
ten aboard  the  bandwagon  of  national  woman  suf- 
frage, which,  so  evident  to  him  at  that  time,  was 
being  carried  on  to  certain  victory  by  an  overwhelm- 
ing majority  of  Republican  votes.  He  should  not  be 
censured  because  he  may  have  a  new  idea  once  in  a 
while." 

"Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  heard  it  said  that  the  Re- 
publicans are  going  to  vote  for  this  (suffrage)  reso- 
lution almost  solidly,  and  that  it  would  be  good  poli- 
tics for  the  Democrats  to  line  up  solidly  for  it  also, 
else  the  Republicans  would  get  credit  for  its  passage, 
and  the  Democrats  would  be  swept  from  power  in 
the  next  elec — " 

Enthralled  though  I  was  in  the  magnificent 
war-time  evidences  of  history  in  the  making  that 
were  coming  to  my  ears,  I  could  not  help  but  no- 
tice that  the  wife,  who  had  become  somewhat 
separated  from  me  in  the  milling  around  of  the 
crowd,  was  desperately  trying  to  press  her  way 
out  of  the  mob.  She  seemed  displeased,  to  put  it 
mildly,  with  something  or  other;  what  it  was  I 
had  no  means,  of  course,  of  knowing.  It  was  just 
as  the  words,  "  It  would  be  good  politics  for  the 

148 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

Democrats  to  line  up  solidly  for  it  also,"  were 
being  intoned  impressively  from  within  that  the 
wife  began  to  elbow  her  way  toward  the  rear  of 
the  crowd  violently.  Maybe  the  man  standing 
back  of  her  had  been  drinking  or  the  stout  lady 
beside  her  may  have  been  shoving  too  hard. 
Well,  so  far  as  I  could  see,  the  wife  had  suffered 
no  serious  injury,  and  her  face  had  suddenly 
flushed  to  a  shade  so  closely  resembling  a  three- 
alarm  fire  that  I  knew  she  had  n't  become  faint 
in  the  crowd.  If  she  wanted  to  go  back  to  our 
hotel,  well  and  good;  she  knew  the  way.  I  had 
come  too  all-fired  far  from  home  to  hear  these 
foremost  statesmen  of  the  land  to  pull  out  of  the 
crowd  now  just  because  the  wife  had  taken  of- 
fense at  some  imaginary  trouble  or  other.  The 
unreasoning,  pettish,  emotional  way  the  mind 
of  woman  does  work  at  times  sure  does  keep  me 
winging. 

She  was  gone,  and  I  had  forgotten  her  the  in- 
stant the  sentences,  or  bunches  of  sentences,  be- 
gan to  filter  out  into  the  corridor  again : 

"Mr.  Speaker,  I  was  amused  at  my  friend  from 
Oklahoma,  Mr.  Ferris,  who  wants  us  to  stand  by  the 
President.  God  knows  I  want  to  stand  with  him.  I 

149 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

am  a  Democrat,  and  I  want  to  follow  the  leader  of  my 
party,  and  I  am  a  pretty  good  lightning-change  artist 
myself  sometimes  (prolonged  laughter) ;  but  God 
knows  I  cannot  keep  up  with  this  performance." 
(Prolonged  laughter.) 

"If  the  wife  should  disagree  with  the  husband  and 
have  her  vote  counted  in  opposition  to  his,  then  we 
would  find  the  husband  and  wife  constantly  engaged 
in  political  disputation,  which  would  grow  more 
heated  and  more  acrimonious  as  a  campaign  advanced, 
until  finally  a  veritable  conflagration  of  domestic  in- 
felicity would  be  kindled,  consuming  the  marital  tie, 
destroying  the  home,  and  sending  the  children  or- 
phans out  on  the  cold  charity  of  the  world  to  become 
charges  on  the  State.  This  picture  is  not  over- 
drawn. ' ' 

''God  knows  that  factional  politics  is  bad  enough 
even  when — " 

"Every  man  on  this  floor  came  into  this  world  at 
the  peril  of  his  mother's  life." 

"If  the  gentleman  thinks  that  and  acts  accordingly 
he  will  go  to  jail  some  of  these  days."  (Prolonged 
laughter. ) 

"Every  novel  in  our  youth  told  us  of  some  young 
fellow  who  told  his  girl  that  she  should  never  soil 
her  lily-white  hands  with  work ;  but  the  last  chapter 
showed  her  taking  in  washing  to  support  an  orphan 
asylum  for  a  drunkard 's  home,  the  children  of  a  man 
sleeping  somewhere  in  a  drunkard's  grave." 

"Mr.  Speaker,  Zobier  Pasha,  still  living,  I  think, 
150 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

in  the  Sudan,  was  the  greatest  slave  king  Africa  ever 
saw." 

Although  the  statesmen  had  been  talking  stead- 
ily for  more  than  two  hours, —  they  had  assem- 
bled an  hour  earlier  than  usual  that  day  because 
of  the  unusual  need  for  rapid,  incisive  action  in 
this  and  countless  other  critical  matters  at  hand, 
- 1  was  still  unable  to  piece  out  their  different 
arguments  sufficiently  to  enable  me  to  figure  out 
just  what  great  war  measure  was  engaging  their 
attention.  Never  was  the  thought  so  distress- 
ingly borne  in  upon  me  that  I  was  but  a  humble 
wool-man  who  had  no  part  in  the  same  intellect- 
ual world  in  which  these  leaders  of  the  people 
thought  and  moved.  No  son  of  mine,  if  a  son 
ever  be  borne  to  bless  us,  would  go  through  life 
without  a  college  education  as  I  had  been  com- 
pelled to  do,  that  I  resolved  then  and  there  as 
the  feeling  crushed  me  that  I  had  n't  even  the 
mind  training  to  enable  me  to  sense  even  vaguely 
what  my  mental  superiors  on  the  floor  below  were 
laboring  so  mightily  about. 

Most  wonderful  of  all  to  me,  little  as  I  under- 
stood it  all,  was  the  untiring  energy  of  these 
patriots  in  our  great  war  crisis.  They  spoke  on 

151 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

and  on  and  on  as  if  it  were  a  pleasure  for  them 
to  do  so,  whereas,  even  I  could  vaguely  see  that 
they  were  voluntarily  taking  upon  their  unselfish 
shoulders  a  labor  of  patriotic  love  that  would 
have  crushed  us  lesser  men.  And  in  their 
anxiety  to  finish  up  this  thing,  whatever  it  was, 
in  the  briefest  possible  time,  so  that  instantly 
they  could  grapple  with  the  next  stupendous  war 
problem  awaiting  them,  they  shot  forth  their 
thoughts  with  machine  gun  rapidity,  so  that  not 
a  golden  moment  be  wasted. 

Back  and  forth  swung  the  door,  and  came  to 
me  the  splendid  periods,  remarkable  for  original- 
ity of  thought,  content,  and  expression,  that 
showed  no  war-time  instant  was  being  wasted : 

"The  gentleman  from  Alabama  reminds  me  of  the 
man  at  the  banquet  in  New  York  City.  He  and  his 
friends  had — "  (Door  was  closed  before  the  speaker 
had  got  far  into  his  funny  story.  Door  was  opened 
as  great  burst  of  laughter  followed  the  completion  of 
the  story.) 

"  Something  has  been  said  about  the  control  of  this 
House  passing  from  the  Democratic  Party  and  the 
South;  we  are  more  concerned  in  the  South  in  con- 
trolling our  own  affairs  than  we  are  in  controlling 
the  small  amount  of  patronage  of  the  gang  of  poli- 

152 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

ticians  that  are  coming  to  Congress  merely  for  the 
loaves  and  fishes." 

"The  Chair  recognizes — " 

"My  mother,  with  my  dear  father,  who  has  passed 
away,  crossed  the  prairie.  It  was  my  mother  who, 
when  the  hot  winds  blew  and  the  grasshoppers  came, 
said,  'No,  Jim,  we  will  not  go  back  to  Ohio.'  My 
mother,"  &c.  [Door  remained  open  long  enough  to 
enable  us  to  hear  early  history  of  the  orator,  his  fa- 
ther and  mother,  but  space  limits  forbid  a  reprint  of 
the  engrossing  history  here.] 

"No  man,  no  woman,  ever  lowered  a  standard  by 
performing  a  duty." 

"In  the  next  Presidential  campaign  no  Republican 
can  be  elected  without  the  vote  of  the  States  where 
women  are  enfranchised.  No  Democrat  can  be  de- 
feated if  he  can  secure  these  votes.  Fortunately  for 
us  the  Republicans  wobbled  on  this  issue  in  the  last 
campaign.  They  will  not  repeat  the  blunder,  and  if 
the  Democratic  Party  is  to  continue  to  rule  this  coun- 
try it  must  display  a  willingness  to  meet  this  issue." 

"Mr.  Speaker,  the  world  moves." 

"Mr.  Speaker,  the  life  of  Lucy  Stone  was  as  in- 
spired as  that  of  Joan  of  Arc.  Born  in  the  little 
farming  town  of  West  Brookfield,  she,"  &c.  [His- 
tory of  Lucy  Stone  BlackwelPs  childhood,  girlhood, 
and  womanhood.  Again  space  limits,  unfortunately, 
do  not  permit  reprint  of  the  interesting  details. 
Those  interested  see  "The  Congressional  Record," 
Vol.  56,  No.  20,  and  read  on  and  on.] 

153 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

"Mr.  Speaker,  the  people  are  made  up  of  men  and 
women. ' ' 

"Why  cannot  women  vote?  Simply  because  they 
are  the  one  great  part  of  the  population  to  whom  the 
franchise  has  not  been  granted." 

"Mr.  Speaker,  a  change  in  the  fundamental  law  of 
the  United  States  is  a  serious  question." 

Then  for  a  longer  interval  than  usual  the  door 
remained  closed.  Just  a  faint  blurring  of  the 
shouts  within  caine  to  us,  now  and  again  punc- 
tuated with  personal  banterings  back  and  forth 
as  the  patriots  relaxed  for  a  moment  from  the 
great  strain  and  indulged  in  merry  quip  and 
lengthy  laughter. 

The  long  time  I  had  been  standing  there  in  the 
crush,  the  heated  air,  something,  began  to  make 
me  feel  depressed.  As  always  these  days  when 
depression  sits  upon  me,  my  thoughts  began  to 
dwell  upon  the  war,  our  war.  Also  my  war 
thoughts  always  persist  in  centering  upon  our 
Freddy  Harper,  who  years  before  had  come 
to  our  office  as  errand  boy,  bright-eyed  and 
snappy  as  a  young  fox-terrier,  and  had  steadily 
worked  his  way  into  our  hearts,  and  up  and  up 
in  our  business  firm.  Then  the  war  had  come, 

154 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

and  Freddy,  who  loved  life  more  than  any  young- 
ster I  had  ever  seen,  grew  moody  for  days.  One 
morning  he  had  come  into  my  office  and  had  had 
a  long  talk  with  me,  and  then  he  had  shaken 
hands  all  around  and  had  walked  out  of  our  busi- 
ness place.  And  a  few  days  later  we  had  put  a 
service  flag  in  our  window,  not  in  silly  boast- 
fulness,  but  because  it  was  the  least  we  could  do 
in  honor  of  Freddy  Harper,  whom  we  loved  very 
much.  One  by  one  we  had  added  to  the  lone 
star  on  our  first  flag  until  there  were  four  stars  in 
all  on  the  little  silk  banner  that  one  of  our  office 
windows  framed.  In  turn  the  four  lads  had  left 
us,  each  of  them  dropping  in  for  a  few  moments 
later  on  to  say  good-by,  bravely  garbed  in  their 
new  khaki,  and  their  eyes  alight  with  the  wonder 
of  the  great  adventure.  The  names  of  two  of 
them,  humble  wool-spongers,  I  could  not  even  re- 
call. The  name  of  the  third,  a  red-haired  Irish 
lad,  red-haired,  white-souled  and  blue-eyed,  I 
might  have  forgotten  forever,  too,  if  it  were  not 
that  his  old  mother  had  come  to  our  office  one  day 
to  tell  us  how  he  had  walked  up  to  death,  a  gen- 
tleman unafraid. 

He  was  lying  in  a  hospital  in  Lyons  now,  his 
155 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

chin  and  much  of  his  lower  jaw  shot  away  — 
Eddie  Murphy  was  his  name,  by  the  way  —  and 
he  never  would  be  able  to  talk  again ;  he  "  never 
would  be  any  good  again,"  as  Eddie's  sister,  who 
had  accompanied  her  mother  from  their  home  in 
Harlem  to  our  office,  had  put  it. 

"  If  Eddie  was  only  here,"  his  mother  had  said, 
"instead  of  suffering  all  alone  among  strangers 
so  far  away,  in  this  place  I  never  before  heard  tell 
of, —  Lyons,  isn't  it  they  call  it,  Susan?  —  if  I 
only  had  the  boy  with  me,  it  would  n't  be  so  hard. 
But  to  lie  in  my  bed  at  night  thinking  and  think- 
ing as  I  do  that  it  is  only  strangers  that  are  car- 
ing for  Eddie  is  tearing  my  heart  till  —  till  — 
I  know  I  promised  you,  Susan,  that  if  you  took 
me  here  I  'd  not  bother  these  gentlemen  by  cry- 
ing, but,  God  help  me!  I —  I  can't  help  myself." 
And  she  had  turned  toward  the  wall  and  buried 
her  face  in  the  cheap  little  muff  she  carried. 

We  had  comforted  her  as  best  we  could,  and 
when  she  had  become  calmer  again  we  had  told 
her  that  immediately  we  would  find  a  place  for 
Susan  in  our  office  or  work-rooms  and  pay  her 
Eddie's  wages  besides.  But  she  had  sat  there 
unheeding,  twisting  her  muff  in  her  hands.  And 
it  was  only  when  we  had  begun  to  tell  her  that  her 

156 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

Eddie  was  not  among  strangers  that  her  interest 
had  come  again.  All  the  hearts  and  the  thoughts 
and  the  dynamic  energies  of  a  greatest  land,  we 
had  assured  her,  solely  were  being  concentrated 
with  helpful  aid  upon  her  Eddie,  and  upon  all 
the  Eddies  who  formed  that  splendid  flower  of 
young  American  manhood  hurrying  eastward  to 
Eddie's  aid.  Why  look  upon  him  as  deserted, 
neglected?  we  had  asked  her  encouragingly,  when 
all  Eddie's  countrymen,  each  so  far  as  lay  in  his 
power,  had  thrust  aside  personal  ambition,  pri- 
vate gain,  every  selfish  interest,  that  they  might 
labor,  day  and  night,  as  one  great  united  people, 
led  by  brilliant  statesmen,  whose  minds  had 
grown  serious  and  sobered  in  a  day  as  they 
jumped  forward  to  lead  to  swift  victory. 

The  door  just  ahead  of  me  that  led  to  an  aisle 
in  the  House  gallery  suddenly  was  shoved  open 
again  and  from  within  came  a  great  gale  of 
raucous  laughter.  And  then  as  the  merriment 
died  down  a  bit  the  voice  of  still  another  orator 
came  out  to  the  mob  in  the  entrance : 

"Mr.  Speaker,  a  certain  Southern  bachelor  poet, 
in  a  spirit  of  poetic  fervor,  exclaimed: 
'Woman,  woman,  thou  art  divine! 
Oh,  that  I  had  one  I  might  call  mine, 
157 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

To  soothe  me  in  my  worstest  woes, 

And  cook  my  dinner  and  wash  my  clothes. '  ' 

(Tremendous  applause  and  laughter.) 

"  God  Almighty !  "  I  swung  round  as  my  wife 
gripped  my  arm  with  a  hand  that  trembled,  her 
voice,  low  and  tense,  coming  to  me  in  this  sem- 
blance of  a  prayer;  for  it  was  a  prayer,  though 
spoken  through  clenched  teeth.  Somehow-  she 
had  worked  out  of  the  crowd  for  a  time,  but  later, 
fascinated,  had  pushed  a  way  close  to  me  again. 

"  God  in  heaven ! "  she  cried  again,  once  we 
were  free  of  the  mob, "  we  're  at  war !  Don't  they 
know  it?  At  war!  Mountebanks!  High -school 
commencement  '  oratory ' !  Silly  jokes !  Vil- 
lage politics!  Roaring  like  fools  over  doggerel 
that  rises  to  the  heights  of  rhyming  woes  and 
clothes!  I  don't  demand  long-faced  solemnity, 
—  even  at  a  funeral,  for  that  matter, —  but  I  do 
demand  at  least  dignified  efficiency,  decency,  un- 
selfishness, unity,  anything  and  everything 
that  '11  help  in  a  terrible  crisis  like  this.  A  hide- 
ous monster  gripping  the  very  throat  of  the  coun- 
try, my  country,  shattering  forever  the  lives  of 
that  boy  from  your  office  and  thousands  like  him, 
ripping  his  chin  off  and  tearing  the  heart  out  of 

158 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

his  mother,  all  their  mothers!  And  this  gang 
here  wastes  hours  and  days  on  asinine  antics! 
For  almost  three  hours  I  've  listened  to  them  now, 
each  side  trying  to  block  the  way  of  the  other  in 
the  scramble  for  votes  next  November.  In  all 
this  sickening  day  not  a  jackanapes  on  that  floor, 
not  one,  has  given  the  slightest  indication  that 
he  was  devoting  a  single  thought  to  whether  suf- 
frage was  or  was  not  a  great  national  good.  My 
own  America,  everything  that's  decent  in  this 
whole  world,  calling  for  help,  and  still  they  snarl 
and  squeal  and  squeak  for  votes,  their  own  re- 
elections,  party  power,  down  there  in  that  hole 
like  a  —  a  —  like  a  pitf  ul  of  vile  rats !  " 

And  then  I  got  mad,  mad  clean  through,  just  as 
mad  as  the  wife  was.  I  would  n't  stand  for  talk 
like  that,  not  from  my  wife  or  any  one  else.  For 
more  than  fifteen  years  we  had  struggled  along 
without  exchanging  billingsgate  or  bitterness; 
but  now,  first  and  last,  I  opened  up  on  the  wife, 
right  there  beyond  earshot  of  the  crowd,  balled 
her  out  and  laced  into  her  until  the  whole  House 
had  nothing  on  me  for  oratorical  fireworks. 
Should  these  men  be  singled  out  for  vile  abuse, 
I  demanded,  when  every  one  else  in  the  land,  from 
the  highest  leaders  in  the  executive  and  legis- 

159 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

lative  branches  of  our  Government  down  to  the 
lowest-browed,  bull -necked  captain  of  a  gas-house 
election  precinct,  had  agreed  that  the  written  and 
spoken  idea  is  the  first  weapon  of  modern  war? 
Who  was  she,  I  thundered,  to  holler  out  abusively 
her  own  private  ideas  when  it  had  been  decided  by 
the  greatest  leaders,  as  soon  as  these  unspeakable 
Huns  had  reached  toward  us  with  hands  red  with 
the  gore  of  girls  and  babes,  that  the  thing  to  do 
was  to  talk  some  sense  and  a  feeling  of  shame  into 
the  monsters ;  raise  an  army,  yes,  but  not  neces- 
sarily so  big  and  costly  an  army  that  its  sheer 
size  and  strength  and  equipment  would  throw  the 
fear  of  God  into  the  savages.  So  great  an  army, 
and  its  accompanying  promise  that  we  were  pre- 
paring for  ten  years,  fifteen  years  if  necessary,  of 
fighting,  might  go  far  toward  splitting  the  allies 
of  the  Hun  away  from  him,  might  even  cause 
within  the  Hun  himself  a  revolutionary  stomach- 
ache so  sickening  to  him  that  he  would  have  to 
lie  down  and  piteously  call  out,  "  Kamerade!" 
But  think  of  the  cost  of  going  so  whole  heartedly 
into  the  battle  —  the  cost  in  dollars !  And  think 
of  the  time  such  an  army  would  take  up  in  the 
raising  and  training  and  equipping  of  it,  hours 
so  long  that  little  or  no  time  would  be  left  for  the 

160 


The  whole  house  had  nothing  on  me  for  oratorical  fireworks 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

pleasanter  and  less  costly  practice  of  sending  out 
an  army  just  large  enough  to  make  a  decent  show- 
ing and  then  devoting  the  rest  of  our  days  to  win- 
ning the  war  vocally.  To  let  the  savage  know  at 
the  outset  that  we  were  going  into  the  war  at  the 
fullest  tilt  might,  quite  truly,  as  I  pointed  out 
to  the  wife,  end  the  whole  hideous  business 
months  or  years  earlier ;  but  I  also  reminded  her 
that  wiser  intellects  than  hers  had  throughout  a 
long  stretch  of  war  months  agreed  that  "  some- 
thing might  turn  up  "  which  would  end  the  mess 
and  so  make  unnecessary  the  tremendous  cost  in 
time  and  money  that  would  have  to  be  used  up 
immediately  if  we  were  to  prepare  to  charge  into 
the  melee  full  tilt.  Yes,  the  thing  to  do  in  the 
meantime  was  to  try  by  messages  and  oratory  to 
bring  about  the  happy  state  of  affairs  where  some- 
thing would  "  turn  up  "  to  help  us  —  to  write  and 
talk,  talk  and  write,  until  the  last  talon  had  been 
talked  off  the  twin  black  eagles  that  perch  on 
the  spiked  helmet  of  the  Sultan  of  Hell. 

"  Yes,  singe  the  black  wings  with  hot  air ! " 
agreed  the  wife;  but  she  said  it  in  a  way  that 
made  me  suspicious. 

We  had  come  out  upon  the  topmost  of  the  ter- 
races of  withered  turf  that  climb  to  meet  the 

161 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

white  marble  base  of  the  Capitol,  and  the  sharp, 
fresh  air  was  good  to  breathe  again.  All  the 
capital,  our  capital,  stretched  away  in  seeming 
peacefulness,  flat  beneath  the  haze  of  a  winter 
afternoon  that  made  the  far  Virginia  hills  vague 
with  mist.  Up  through  the  haze  leaped  to  the 
clouds  the  great  granite  shaft,  simple  in  outline, 
as  all  things  in  life  and  art  and  love  and  death 
are  simple  —  simple  as  the  immortal  Virginian 
whose  life  the  granite  commemorated.  On  an 
eye  level,  high  in  the  Virginia  hillside  and  haze, 
nestled  the  one-time  home  of  the  great  gray  cap- 
tain who,  though  he  fought  on  the  erring  side, 
was  the  greatest  soldier  of  his  time.  Between 
the  shaft  and  the  far  colonial  home  shimmered 
the  marble  impressiveness  of  the  new  memorial 
to  Lincoln,  whose  very  name  suggests  anything 
but  marble  impressiveness ;  doubtless  if  the  choice 
were  given  him  he  would  exchange  — "  swap," 
he  probably  would  call  the  transaction  —  with 
General  Washington  the  impressive  marble  for 
the  general's  simple  white  shaft.  And  spreading 
near  and  far  was  the  city  that  seemed  to  our  eyes 
lazy  and  sleepy,  but  really  was  all  agog  with  a 
new  tumultuousness.  As  evidence  of  the  new 
tumult  arose  lengthy  stretches  of  flimsy  build- 

162 


THE  EAGLE  CHIRPS 

ings,  "  shacks/'  that  alined  themselves  amid  the 
leafless  trees  back  of  and  beyoiid  the  White 
House,  mushroom  shelters  that  in  a  night  had 
been  reared  to  house  great  scientists,  financiers, 
creators  from  all  the  walks  of  science  and  com- 
merce, who  at  the  first  call,  without  waiting  for 
the  call,  had  jumped  forward,  like  Eddie  Murphy, 
to  give  the  best  that  was  in  them  for  the  common 
good.  Home  life,  great  business  dreams  and 
practices,  everything,  they  had  brushed  aside  so 
that  they  might  devote  all  their  alert  mentality 
to  a  country  in  dire  need  of  unselfish  service: 
surgeons  of  world  fame,  merging  their  greatness 
in  simple  fashion  with  the  splendid  legions  of 
khaki-clad  lads  who  had  come  forth  from  every 
office  building,  shop,  factory,  farm-house ;  writers 
who  had  flung  aside  their  half -finished  tales,  per- 
haps forever,  painters  who  had  dropped  their 
brushes;  venerable  admirals,  colonels,  their 
sparse  hair  long  since  grown  white  in  a  service 
that  well  merited  the  peaceful  retirement  which 
had  been  theirs  when  the  call  came,  who  had  put 
grandchildren  from  their  knees  and  kicked  aside 
the  carpet  slippers,  and  once  more  had  donned 
a  uniform  that  they  had  thought  had  been  folded 
away  forever  —  all  now  a  part  of  a  grand  army 

163 


THE  WAR- WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

that  was  putting  to  the  test,  once  and  for  all,  the 
old  new  ideals  of  a  young  political  federation  of 
colonies,  the  greatest  on  earth,  which  now  the 
first  time  was  welding  itself  into  a  nation. 

We  talked  of  these  things,  the  wife  and  I,  as  we 
walked  slowly  down  the  terraces.  Some  of  her 
anger  had  gone.  She  even  listened  quietly 
enough  when  I  tried  to  make  her  see  that  the 
House  whose  practices  of  the  day  she  had  re- 
sented was  not  made  up  quite  of  mountebanks. 
I  told  her  of  a  white-haired  Jew,  middle  aged,  but 
with  the  manner  and  appearance  of  an  ancient 
patriarch  of  his  race,  who  in  that  House  repre- 
sented not  only  his  constituents  in  California,  but 
all  that  the  ideals  of  our  country  represented; 
who,  when  we  could  bear  the  insults  no  longer, 
had  been  chosen  to  present  the  war  declaration 
which  said  again  that  government  of  the  people 
and  by  the  people  and  for  the  people  shall  not 
perish  from  this  earth.  And  I  told  her  about  the 
young  congressman  from  Massachusetts  who, 
years  before  the  Hun  broke  loose,  had  suffered 
ridicule  while  preaching  in  the  same  House  we 
had  just  left  the  doctrine  of  preparedness, 
preached  it  alone  and  lonely;  who  in  his  sincerity 
had  donned  the  khaki  also  the  instant  the  call  had 

164 


THE  EAGLE  CHIEFS 

come,  and  had  scarcely  reached  his  training-camp 
when  he  died  of  illness ;  had  ended  his  career  in  a 
blaze  of  glory  quite  as  radiant  as  if  he  had  stum- 
bled among  meshes  of  barbed  wire  with  a  bullet 
through  his  brave  heart. 

"  Any  one,  every  one,"  I  said  gently  to  the  wife 
—  our  talk  had  made  us  friends  again  — "  has  a 
bit  of  brain  blurring,  has  to  grope  about  mentally, 
during  the  first  half-awake  hours  in  the  early 
morning.  Every  one,  you  yourself,"  I  went  on  as 
we  stood  near  the  Peace  Monument  at  the  foot 
of  the  hill,  waiting  for  our  car,  "  needs  the  shock 
of  cold  water  on  the  face  in  the  morning  to  rouse 
the  old  bean  into  clear  thought  and  action.  And 
listen,  old  girl :  we  may  not  be  aroused  yet,  we 
certainly  are  not  as  wide-awake  as  we  should  be ; 
but  when  the  big  shock  comes,  and  jolts  us  into 
wide  wakefulness  — " 

But  our  car  had  come. 


165 


CHAPTER  VII 

SHERMAN   WAS  BIGHT 

"Then    I    can    write    a    washing-bill    in    Babylonic 

cuneiform, 

And  tell  you  every  detail  of  Caractacus's  uniform. 
In  short,  in  matters  vegetable,  animal,  and  mineral, 
I  am  the  very  model  of  a  modern  major-gineral ! " 

ALTHOUGH  the  number  of  brand-new  young 
army  and  navy  officers  paving  the  streets 
and  lobbies  and  peacock  alleys  of  the  hotels  in 
the  capital  in  these  days  is  almost  as  large  as 
Mr.  IngersolFs  collection  of  dollar  watches, 
Washington  is  the  last  place  in  America  to  go  to 
get  the  best,  the  only  correct,  idea  and  appreci- 
ation of  our  new  army.  Despite  the  fact  that 
Mr.  Heinz  and  Mr.  Ingersoll  have  fewer  pickles 
and  watches  combined  than  the  capital  has  sol- 
diers and  sailors  in  uniform,  if  one  were  to  con- 
tent oneself  with  an  idea  of  the  army  gained 
merely  by  studying  the  display  it  offers  at  the 

166 


SHERMAN  WAS  EIGHT 

capital,  one  would  be  in  danger  of  arriving  at 
wholly  false,  unfair  conclusions. 

When  a  great  nation  explosively  takes  up  arms, 
somebody,  of  course,  has  to  hang  round  offices 
and  do  desk  work,  while  the  mightier  horde  of 
somebodies  rushes  to  the  glorious  Field  of  the 
Cloth  of  Khaki.  And  there,  in  the  tented  cities 
of  the  training  camps,  not  in  Washington,  is  the 
place  to  see,  really  to  see,  the  new  army,  out  un- 
der the  open  sky,  in  the  sunshine  or  in  the  rain 
or  in  the  wind  or  in  the  cold  and  the  blackness 
of  night.  There,  in  the  open  field,  are  congre- 
gated the  lads  who  do  not  merely  want  to  "  do 
something  for  the  country,"  who  do  not  enter 
into  the  great  adventure  with  misty  notions  of 
what  that  "  something  "  is.  Theirs'  is  the  scheme 
of  life  as  simple  as  the  call  of  the  whip-poor-will : 
they  want  to  don  a  suit  of  soldier  clothes  and 
train  long  enough,  just  long  enough,  to  learn 
which  part  of  a  rifle  is  the  trigger,  and  then 
race  up  the  inclined  gang-plank  leading  to  the 
gray  sides  of  an  outgoing  transport,  calling  back 
happily  as  they  race  along :  "  G'-by,  folks ! 
Look  me  up  in  Berlin !  "  These  are  the  lads  of 
the  new  army  who  are  training  on  sun-soaked, 
rain-soaked,  sun-hardened,  ice-hardened  drill- 

167 


THE  WAR-WHIKL  IN  WASHINGTON 

fields  in  the  East  and  the  West.  They  are  not 
"  pacifists  at  heart,"  as  some  of  the  executives, 
regardless  of  militant  and  grandiose  messages 
and  speeches,  far  above  them  are.  They  are  one 
with  Frank  Swett  Black,  now  dead,  who,  because 
he  was  a  master  of  the  concrete,  could  say  what 
they  can  only  think: 

The  fate  of  nations  is  still  decided  by  their  wars. 
You  may  talk  of  orderly  tribunals  and  learned 
referees;  you  may  sing  in  your  schools  the  gentle 
praises  of  the  quiet  life;  you  may  strike  from  your 
books  the  last  note  of  every  martial  anthem,  and  yet 
out  in  the  smoke  and  thunder  will  always  be  the 
tramp  of  horses  and  the  silent,  rigid,  upturned  face. 
Men  may  prophesy  and  women  pray,  but  peace  will 
come  here  to  abide  forever  on  this  earth  only  when  the 
dreams  of  childhood  are  the  accepted  charts  to  guide 
the  destinies  of  men. 

They,  the  boys  in  the  open,  not  the  lads  in 
Washington,  are  the  real  new  army.  I  knew  one 
of  them,  and  he  is  a  type.  He  was  a  young  re- 
porter, within  the  draft  age,  when  the  war  be- 
gan. Some  one  in  Washington  knew  of  his  abil- 
ity. Washington  did  him  the  honor  of  sending 
for  him.  He  told  me  when  he  came  back  what 
had  happened  there. 

168 


SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT 

"  Nothing  doing,''  he  said.  "  They  wanted  me 
to  do  some  kind  of  press-agent  publicity  to  take 
the  curse  off  the  knocks  in  the  newspapers  about 
the  inosquitos  in  Yaphank,  Long  Island,  and  the 
raps  against  the  other  sites  selected  for  canton- 
ments. They  said  they  'd  give  me  sixty  dollars 
a  week  —  pretty  soft,  what?  —  to  write  the  stuff 
they  want  to  get  before  the  public,  and  they  said 
they  'd  see  that  I  got  a  commission  in  a  short 
time.  But  I  told  them  nothing  doing." 

"Why  not?"  I  asked. 

"  Well/'  he  said  bashfully,  fixing  his  glance  on 
his  shoes,  "  I  'd  only  be  a  sort  of  clerk  there.  I 
don't  think  a  husky  guy  like  me  has  any  busi- 
ness sitting  around  a  desk  in  Washington,  or 
just  handing  out  tracts  and  warning  the  boys 
about  cigarettes  in  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  hut  in  France, 
or  ducking  the  real  stuff  the  way  a  lot  of  these 
rah-rah  boys  are  doing.  I  ain't  looking  for  trou- 
ble, but  if  I  've  got  to  get  it,  I  don't  want  it  to  be 
from  a  type-writer  falling  on  my  foot  or  poison- 
ing myself  to  death  by  sucking  an  indelible-pen- 
cil. This  is  a  good  job  they  're  offering  me,  and 
it 's  darn  nice  of  them ;  but  if  I  took  it,  I 
would  n't  feel  comfortable,  and  I  know  the  folks, 
my  father  and  mother,  would  n't  like  it.  They  'd 

169 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

just  keep  fretting,  like  I  would,  over  taking  a 
job  that  was  just  keeping  me  out  of  the  draft. 
Get  me?  I  wouldn't  feel  comfortable." 

So  he  enlisted  as  a  private.  I  saw  him  only 
once  after  that.  It  was  round  Thanksgiving  day, 
I  remember.  They  had  let  him  come  home  from 
the  training  camp  because  daily  drills  on  soggy 
fields  down  on  Long  Island  had  been  a  bit  too 
much  for  him;  six  years  spent  largely  pounding 
a  type-writer  in  a  hot  office  had  not  fitted  him 
for  sudden  entry  upon  a  life  in  the  cold  outdoors, 
and  temporarily  he  had  lost  his  voice.  But  a  few 
days  of  vacation  set  him  right  again,  and  then 
he  went  back  to  Long  Island  to  resume  his  drills 
again.  And  the  last  I  heard  about  him  was  just 
an  item  that  he  was  over  in  France,  taking  things 
easy,  prone  in  a  field,  and  comfortable  at  last, 
"  with  a  big  blue  mark  on  his  forehead  and  the 
back  blown  out  of  his  head." 

He  was  one  of  the  new  army.  Doubtless  there 
are  many  like  him  among  the  soldier  lads  who 
throng  the  capital  now,  but,  unfortunately,  one 
constantly  is  falling  over  the  kind  of  "  officer  " 
who  wants  "  to  do  something  "  up  to,  but  not 
quite  including,  a  trip  to  a  front-line  trench, 
where  one  stands  waiting  through  the  black  night 

170 


SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT 

for  the  whispered  order  to  go  over  the  top  with 
the  best  of  luck,  and  the  devil  take  the  foremost. 
Threatening  them  had  been  that  pesky  draft ;  and 
if  one  is  of  draft  age,  one  stands  a  chance,  which 
comes  uncomfortably  close  to  a  certainty,  that 
one  will  have  to  go  through  that  very  experience 
in  a  black  trench  some  night. 

"  Not  for  me! "  secretly  says  the  youngster  of 
canniness.  "  Gee !  I  'm  only  twenty-seven  and 
perfectly  healthy,  so  the  draft  is  going  to  get  me. 
It 's  me  to  see  if  father  or  Uncle  Jim  or  some- 
body doesn't  know  some  one  in  Washington. 
Maybe  I  can  get  a  job  down  there  that  won't  be 
so  bad.  Anyway,  truck-drivers  and  chaps  like 
that  can  carry  a  gun  and  do  the  dirty  work  better 
than  I  can ;  but  there  are  a  lot  of  other  things  to 
be  done  at  Washington  which  a  man  like  myself 
can  do,  and  a  truck-driver  can't."  (Which  is  an 
argument  containing  elements  of  logic. )  Where- 
upon father  or  uncle  or  a  business  associate  or 
close  friend  grasps  an  end  of  a  wire  and  begins 
to  pull  it.  Then,  when  the  wires  have  been 
pulled  hard  enough,  the  youngster  one  day  flashes 
forth  in  his  brand-new  khaki  brooksbrothers  or 
searsroebucks,  now  a  proud  clerk  dressed  in  the 
uniform  of  a  lieutenant,  captain,  or,  if  over 

171 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

thirty,  even  a  major.  Thereafter  in  manner,  if 
not  in  actual  words,  he  sighs  to  an  admiring 
world,  "  Yep,  I  just  chucked  everything  and  came 
down  here  to  do  my  bit." 

Not  that  all  the  specimens  of  the  new  young 
army  which  one  stumbles  upon  steadily  in  Wash- 
ington are  just  like  that  lad.  Not  by  a  great 
deal.  Momentarily  one  meets  up  with  young 
novelists,  brokers,  brilliant  newspaper  and  maga- 
zine writers,  lawyers,  actors,  advertising  experts, 
all  now  in  uniform,  who  are  beyond  the  draft 
age,  but  still  young  enough  and  game  enough  to 
give  up  salaries,  business  incomes;  they  have 
sublet  the  flat  or  the  little  new  house  with  its 
trimmings  of  wooden  lace  in  the  suburbs  — 
"  First  and  Second  Mortgage  Hall,"  as  one  of 
them  called  his  home  —  and  come  to  an  army  or 
navy  desk  in  Washington  at  half,  a  third,  or  a 
fifth  of  their  regular  incomes.  One  of  them  had 
long  been  receiving  a  salary  of  two  thousand  dol- 
lars a  week  (real  money,  not  stage)  as  a  movie 
hero,  but  gave  it  up  to  serve  as  a  captain  at  about 
one  fortieth  of  his  accustomed  wage.  And  they 
tackle  their  new  jobs  with  the  zeal  of  a  convert 
tackling  his  newest  religion,  with  an  emotional 
energy  that  brings  smiles,  sometimes  cynical 

172 


SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT 

smiles,  to  the  bronzed  faces  of  West  Point  and 
Annapolis  alumni,  to  whom  this  war  business  is 
—  well,  just  a  regular  business.  And  it  is  good 
that  the  emotional  pep  is  in  them:  Newman, 
Ignatius,  St.  Augustine,  Orestes  Brownson,  Rose 
Hawthorne  Lathrop,  all  tackled  a  new  job  suc- 
cessfully because  they  went  at  it  with  a  fervor  of 
which  only  a  convert  who  has  set  aside  physical 
and  mental  comforts  seems  capable. 

Mingling  with  these  are  the  "  regulars,"  to 
whom  the  new  excitement  is  merely  a  speeding 
up  in  a  trade  that  calls  for  no  outburst  of  emo- 
tion. No  American  city  hives  harder  workers 
than  this  aggregate  of  regular  soldiers  and  vol- 
unteers; but  the  whole  military  impression  in 
Washington  is  not  edification  unalloyed,  for  the 
reason  that  the  lad  with  a  pull  almost  always 
lands  a  Washington  billet  and  is  constantly  bob- 
bing up  before  the  visitor.  Into  the  hotel  rooms 
of  busy  men  of  influence,  into  their  offices,  their 
homes,  stream  the  youngsters  of  draft  age,  all 
presenting  their  "  letters,"  all  "  anxious  to  do 
something,"  so  long  as  it  will  keep  them  in  an 
office  that  is  tightly  enough  closed  to  prevent  a 
severe  draft  on  the  back  of  the  neck.  The  hor- 
rors of  war  to  them  are  centered  in  their  inability 

173 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

to  get  a  room  with  bath  at  the  Shoreham  or 
Willard  while  bothering  everybody  for  a  Wash- 
ington job  that  includes  ja  commission.  And  the 
quality  of  their  brains  and  hearts  retrogrades  in 
direct  ratio  to  the  length  of  the  war.  For  as  the 
country  saw  our  end  of  the  Big  Mix-up  stretch 
through  a  summer  and  autumn  and  winter  and 
on  into  earliest  spring,  the  capital  began  to  rain 
bearers  of  letters  of  introduction  who  had  held 
out  until  the  last,  not  having  the  gumption  in 
the  earliest  days  to  exchange  home  pleasures  for 
even  the  discomforts  of  Washington,  but  all 
waiting  until  a  draft  number  was  beginning  to 
reach  right  out  and  bite  'em.  Among  them  were 
countless  youths  who,  fearing  the  shoulder  blis- 
ters that  might  come  from  carrying  a  rifle,  had 
tried  at  least  to  get  a  commission  in  an  officers' 
training  camp,  but  had  been  rejected  because  they 
lacked  the  hearts  and  the  brains  and  the  guts  that 
an  officer  should  have.  Back  they  went  to  their 
home  towns  then,  and  to  inquisitive  neighbors 
they  described  their  brain  and  soul  ailments  as 
"  eye  strain,"  "  slight  physical  defect,"  or,  to 
quote  the  commonest  term  for  head  and  heart 
hollowness,  "  flat  feet  " ;  whereas  the  chief  trou- 
ble was  that  the  army  men  who  had  probed  into 

174 


SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT 

their  general  mental  make-up  had  early  discov- 
ered in  the  training  camps  that  any  one  of  them 
could  comfortably  wear  a  demi-tasse  for  a  high 
hat.  And  down  they  came  to  Washington  next, 
knowing  that  their  draft  number  was  still  snap- 
ping at  their  heels,  and  began  to  look  round  for 
an  office  desk  with  a  Southern  exposure  and  a 
suit  of  working-clothes  that  included  at  least  one 
bar  at  the  shoulder,  leather  puttees,  and  a  pair 
of  third-act  spurs  warranted  to  play  the  very 
dickens  with  the  rugs  on  the  Willard's  Peacock 
Alley  or  to  gouge  all  the  varnish  off  the  Govern- 
ment's desk-chairs. 

"  This  whole  dam'  town,"  drawled  an  admiral 
of  the  navy,  famous  for  his  own  efficiency  and  his 
biting  wit,  as  he  talked  one  day,  months  after 
we  had  entered  the  war,  of  the  kind  of  Washing- 
ton "  officer  "  whose  uniform  is  common  in  the 
hotel  peacock  alleys  — "  this  whole  dam'  place 
is  a  town  choking  to  death  with  c  efficiency.' 
Washington,  if  you  want  a  brief  description,  is 
a  city  composed  of  efficiency  and  flat  feet. 
They  're  down  here  to  '  do  their  bit/  too,  every 
one  of  these  slickers.  They  're  down  here  to  get 
their  bite,  that 's  what.  '  Flat  feet/  '  dropped 
from  officers'  training  camp  because  of  slight 

175 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

physical  deficiency.'  '  Slight  physical  deficiency/ 
me  eye!  Listen,  son:  that  slight  physical  defi- 
ciency almost  always  is  in  the  head,  or  they'd 
have  got  their  commissions  in  the  line.  Did  you 
ever  hear  of  a  boy  flunked  out  of  Annapolis  class- 
rooms who  did  n't  have  '  bad  eyes '  by  the  time  he 
stepped  off  the  train  at  home?  Neither  did  I. 
These  kids  down  here  have  brains  enough  to 
match  pennies,  haven't  they?  Well,  matching 
pennies  and  being  a  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States  and  shouldering  a  rifle  have  one  thing  in 
common :  none  of  them  requires  the  slightest  in- 
telligence. And  if  they  have  n't  brains  enough 
to  handle  men  in  battle,  they  ought  to  shoulder  a 
rifle ;  that  or  shut  up  about  '  doing  their  bit '  up 
and  down  the  hotel  lobbies  of  this  town.  It 
does  n't  take  an  intellectual  giant  to  grasp  the 
thought  in  an  officer's  mind  when  he  yells, 
'  For-r-r-d  march ! '  or, '  Over  the  top,  and  the  best 
of  luck,  and  give  'em  hell ! ' 

"  But  they  're  mama's  boys,  and  their  mamas 
and  papas  are  as  much,  or  more,  to  blame  than 
they  are.  Instead  of  giving  the  young  cub  a  good 
whaling,  papa  moves  heaven  and  Washington  to 
get  his  own  son  a  soft  job  here,  and  then  runs 
out  on  the  front  stoop  to  give  three  rousing 

176 


•Oh.  in   on<;  of  our   Indian  wars  out  West,"  finally  he  admitted 


SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT 

cheers  when  a  regiment  of  somebody  else's  sons 
marches  by.  And  mama  buys  a  sweet  little  serv- 
ice-flag to  stick  in  the  parlor  window  while  weep- 
ing to  the  card  club  about  '  poor  Ethelbert,  off 
to  the  wars.'  That  service-flag  is  a  memorial  to 
the  fact  that  Ethelbert 's  landed  a  good  job  here 
which  pays  him  about  thirty  iron  men  a  week 
more  than  he  could  earn  in  any  place  one  door 
beyond  the  old  man's  office. 

"  Some  of  these  boys  who  've  got  commissions 
here  are  doing  splendid  work  —  in  the  Intelli- 
gence Department,  or  inspecting  motor-engines 
that  they  learned  a  lot  about  while  running  their 
own  cars  or  while  puttering  round  papa's  auto- 
mobile factory ;  or  they  've  been  on  magazines  or 
newspapers  or  been  turning  out  best  sellers,  and 
so  can  do  a  lot  of  stuff  here  that  a  trained  writer 
can  do  a  darn  sight  better  than  a  regular  army 
or  navy  man  can.  But  there 's  a  gosh-awf ul 
bunch  around  this  town  who  are  just  clerks  and 
ought  to  be  considered  as  such.  Even  they  are 
needed  here,  but  for  heaven's  sake  let  'em  get  out 
of  the  idea  that  they  are  making  sacrifices, '  doing 
their  bit,'  and  all  that  monkey  business.  Give 
'em  the  jobs  that  '11  exempt  them  from  the  draft 
if  they  haven't  the  nerve  to  go  into  the  line  as 

177 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

privates  —  and  they  haven't.  But  it  gets  my 
dander  up  every  time  I  see  one  of  these  clerks,  all 
decked  out  in  uniforms  and  spurs  and  things,  like 
Astor's  sorrel  mare,  and  then  see  a  big,  two-fisted, 
red-blooded  private  named  Hymendinger  or 
Sweeney,  who  's  in  this  thing  to  see  it  through  or 
get  his  gizzard  blown  through  his  backbone  while 
trying,  breeze  along  and  have  to  bring  his  hand 
up  in  respectful  salute  to  a  clerk  who  has  n't  got 
moral  fiber  enough  to  make  a  pair  of  laces  for 
Private  Hymendinger's  bow-legged  canvas  leg- 
gings." 

He  's  awful  rough,  this  admiral  is.  Sometimes 
he  talks  som'thin'  terrible.  I  happened  to  catch 
him  when  he  was  in  a  fairish  humor,  but  when 
he 's  in  real  good  form  his  talk  would  make  those 
mamas  and  papas  who  think  other  mamas  and 
papas  should  supply  the  boys  for  the  trenches 
quite  certain  that  he  is  a  mean  old  thing,  so  there ! 
His  whole  theory  of  the  art  and  practice  of  war 
he  expresses  in  a  motto  of  one  line,  "  Kick  'em  in 
the  slats ! "  He  is  crude  enough  to  think  that 
spies  should  be  shot,  on  the  principle  that  one 
unshot  spy  will  cause  the  deaths  of  innumerable 
American  boys.  Wholly  differing  in  ideas  with 
the  good  ladies  who  send  flowers  to  murderers, 

178 


SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT 

and  therefore  differing  with  their  prototypes  in 
trousers  at  Washington,  his  voice  sounds  lonely 
in  a  land  of  sentimentalists  administered  by  sen- 
timentalists as  he  advocates  not  only  the  shooting 
of  spying  Teutons,  but  also  the  shooting  of  Amer- 
ican lads  caught  sleeping  when  on  sentry  duty, 
inasmuch  as  sleeping  sentries  mean  unnecessary 
deaths  to  their  brothers  in  the  trenches.  He 
shares  at  least  one  idea  with  the  great  gray  fight- 
ing machine  that  for  years  has  beaten  the  whole 
world  to  a  standstill  and  will  continue  victorious 
until  we  have  sent  a  greater  machine  against  it  — 
he  shares  the  Hindenburg  idea  with  the  rest  of 
the  "  regulars  "  of  the  army  and  navy,  who  surely 
know  as  much  about  their  trade  as  the  congenital 
pacifist  does,  who  believe  that  a  nation  has  no 
business  in  war  unless  it  goes  along  with  its  work 
on  the  theory  that  war  necessitates  vulgar  things, 
such  as  sticking  a  bayonet  into  a  swine's  belly 
when  the  swine  charges,  and  turning  the  steel 
round  half  a  dozen  times  without  once  pausing 
to  sigh,  "  Really,  swine,  this  hurts  me  more  than 
it  does  you." 

This  same  splendid  naval  officer  is  quickest  to 
praise  the  good  work  of  the  young  and  middle- 
aged  volunteer  officers  that  one  finds  at  desks  all 

179 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

over  the  capital  now,  even  though  the  emotional 
ardor  of  the  new  desk  officers  at  times  causes  him 
to  share  the  indulgent  smiles  of  his  unemotional 
colleagues  in  the  regular  service.  It  was  he  who 
told  me  of  the  over-anxious  young  man  who  gave 
an  unpleasant  moment  to  the  owner  and  pub- 
lisher of  a  New  York  daily  newspaper  published 
in  the  German  language. 

In  the  course  of  his  Washington  duties  the 
arduous  young  man  happened  upon  a  paragraph 
( in  German,  of  course )  printed  on  the  front  page 
of  the  New  York  daily.  The  young  man  jumped 
up  with  an  indignant  exclamation,  made  a  broad 
blue-pencil  mark  round  the  offending  paragraph, 
and  then,  knowing  that  the  publisher  of  the 
paper  happened  to  be  in  Washington,  summoned, 
him  up  on  the  carpet. 

"  What  do  you  mean,  sir,  by  printing  that?  " 
cried  the  young  man,  tapping  the  marked  para- 
graph angrily.  The  German-American  newspa- 
per man  adjusted  his  glasses,  read  the  paragraph, 
and  looked  upon  his  inquisitor  in  amazement. 

"  Why,  my  dear  sir,"  cried  the  publisher, 
"  that  is  merely  the  British  casualty  list  for  the 
past  month,  officially  sent  forth  by  the  British 
war  authorities  themselves.  That  list  is  first 

180 


SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT 

submitted  to  the  censor  in  London,  then  it  is 
handed  to  the  Associated  Press  to  be  cabled  to 
this  country,  next  it  is  passed  upon  by  the  naval 
censorship  office  in  Broad  Street,  New  York,  be- 
fore being  released  to  the  New  York  office  of  the 
Associated  Press.  And  then  the  cable  is  edited 
in  the  Associated  Press  office,  and  finally  sent 
broadcast  to  the  association's  newspaper  clients 
in  America,  of  whom  my  paper  happens  to  be  one, 
for  publication.  You  will  find  that  cable  des- 
patch, sir,  in  almost  every  paper  in  America  this 
morning,  just  as  we  have  printed  it,  except  that 
one  of  my  staff,  of  course,  translated  it  literally 
into  German  for  our  paper." 

"  That 's  it,"  stormed  the  young  man,  pacing 
his  office.  "  The  thing  looks  so  damnable 
printed  in  German!" 

There  one  has  an  example  of  the  meticulous- 
ness  of  the  novice  which  at  its  worst  is  only  amus- 
ing. More  edifying  is  the  fine  zeal  which  one 
sees  at  its  best  among  the  newly  made  officers, 
just  out  of  mufti,  who  compose  an  important 
section  of  the  Intelligence  Department  of  the 
army.  The  very  secretiveness  of  their  work  en- 
courages mystery  and  whisperings  even  out- 
side of  office  hours.  Many  of  them  have  desks 

181 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

in  the  War  College,  which  is  one  building  in  a 
warring  Washington  into  which,  so  far  as  I  could 
learn  by  actual  experiment,  the  casual  visitor 
may  not  roam  at  will.  In  a  way  they  do  much 
work  popularly  supposed  to  be  done  by  our  Se- 
cret Service  operatives  in  war-time.  And  it  is 
well  that  so  many  of  these  new  officers,  who  in  a 
recent  civilian  state  had  been  writers,  profes- 
sional men  of  parts,  or  engaged  in  other  voca- 
tions that  required  brains,  have  been  promptly 
put,  once  they  received  their  commissions,  at  the 
intelligence  work  they  are  now  doing.  They 
have  immeasurably  more  intellect  than  the  aver- 
age Secret  Service  operative  for  one  thing,  which 
partly,  not  altogether,  makes  up  for  their  lack 
of  "detective"  training;  and  again,  it  is  well 
that  somebody,  anybody,  at  last  has  been  put  to 
work  at  ferreting  out  the  dangerous  aliens  and 
their  kind  who  are  bold  enough  even  to  continue 
right  up  to  the  present  time  to  use  our  postal 
service  in  their  underground  plottings. 

Now  it  is  popularly  supposed  that  our  Secret 
Service,  since  our  entry  into  the  war  and  before, 
was  devoting  its  great  machinery  and  its  splen- 
did archives  to  the  work  of  running  down  spies. 
The  Secret  Service  was  not  and  is  not  doing  any- 

182 


SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT 

thing  of  the  sort.  Under  a  fool  law  passed  by 
Congress  about  ten  years  ago  the  Secret  Service 
must  confine  its  activities  solely  to  running  down 
and  arresting  counterfeiters  and  protecting  the 
person  of  the  President!  We  have  one  of  the 
best  Secret  Service  organizations,  considering  its 
inadequate  size,  in  the  world,  and  the  service  has 
been,  especially  since  the  Civil  War,  adding  to 
its  archives  until  to-day  its  "  rogues'  gallery " 
and  kindred  photographs  and  data  are  of  vast 
value,  or  would  be  if  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  permitted  the  Secret  Service  to  perform 
the  duties  for  which  it  was  organized  and  devel- 
oped. But  it  is  only  by  breaking  the  laws  of 
the  United  States  that  the  Secret  Service  can 
interest  itself  in  spies  or  any  other  law-breakers, 
unless  the  criminal  be  a  counterfeiter  or  an  as- 
sailant of  the  person  of  the  President.  Never- 
theless, citizens  of  the  land  almost  to  a  man, 
even  trained  "  crime "  reporters  on  the  great 
metropolitan  newspapers,  who  pride  themselves 
on  knowing  about  every  New  York  police  captain 
by  his  first  name,  persist  in  believing  that  when 
a  spy  or  German  plotter  is  arrested  his  detection 
was  due  to  the  Secret  Service.  The  crime  ex- 
perts of  the  newspapers  always  —  not  usually, 

183 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

but  always  —  are  insisting  in  print  that  "  an  au- 
tomobile filled  with  Secret  Service  men  dashed 
up  to  the  building  and  arrested  Fritz  von  Frank- 
furter and  his  entire  office  staff  on  the  charge 
that  the  Teutons  had  violated  the  espionage  act." 
They  are  not  "  Secret  Service  men  "  who  dash 
up  and  grab  Fritz  and  his  brother  felons.  The 
Secret  Service  men  would  like  nothing  so  much 
as  an  opportunity  to  devote  their  talents  and 
equipment  to  that  very  work  of  trailing  Fritz 
and  putting  him  awray  for  a  long,  long  time ;  but 
the  law  says,  "  No,  you  must  devote  your  whole 
energies  solely  to  running  down  counterfeiters 
and  supplying  enough  men  to  guard  the  Presi- 
dent when  he  takes  the  air." 

During  all  the  sickening  months,  years,  that 
bombs  were  bursting  on  our  docks,  in  our  muni- 
tions factories,  aboard  our  outbound  ships,  there 
were  fewer  Secret  Service  men  engaged  in  trying 
to  "  get "  the  perpetrators  of  these  and  like 
crimes  throughout  the  country  than  there  are, 
by  actual  count,  chorus  men  in  any  good-sized 
Broadway  musical  comedy;  and  it  was  only  by 
subterfuge,  by  "  borrowing  "  Secret  Service  oper- 
atives from  the  Treasury  Department,  which  con- 
trols the  service,  that  even  one  Secret  Service 

184 


SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT 

man  was  engaged  in  spy  work.  From  the  days 
of  Boy-Ed  and  even  earlier  the  Secret  Service 
implored  the  powers  at  Washington  for  permis- 
sion to  swat  the  spies,  but  without  success.  No, 
they  were  informed,  the  Department  of  Justice 
would  attend  to  the  spies,  this  despite  the  fact 
that  the  function  of  the  Department  of  Justice 
is  primarily  punitive,  not  preventive.  Where- 
fore a  great  untrained  body  of  volunteers  in  the 
Department  of  Justice,  thousands  of  amateur 
sleuths,  straightway  began  to  sherlockholmes 
and  mess  round  in  the  muddle,  while  the  very 
efficient  Secret  Service  men  impatiently  warmed 
office-chairs  in  Washington  and  New  York,  pray- 
ing that  the  monotony  would  be  varied  by  a  swing 
round  the  circle  with  the  President,  or  that 
Beppo  would  begin  again  to  try  to  coin  anemic 
lead  quarters  in  his  cellar  in  Little  Italy,  any- 
thing that  would  give  the  operatives  a  bit  of 
fresh  air.  And  the  administration  folk  not  only 
told  the  Secret  Service  to  obey  the  law  that 
makes  it  unserviceable,  but  also  warned  it  to 
keep  secret  the  fact  that  it  was  not  permitted  to 
search  for  spies,  since  the  "  public  effect  would 
be  bad  if  the  people  generally  were  permitted  to 
know  that  the  Secret  Service"  was  not  secret- 

185 


THE  WAR- WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

servicing.  But  inasmuch  as  all  Germany,  any 
one  who  cared  to  look  up  the  law,  knew  the  de- 
plorable conditions  that  hobble  our  Secret  Serv- 
ice, why  not  let  a  general  public  that  pays  for 
the  Secret  Service  have  an  inkling  of  the  news? 
Why  make  a  plea  of  "  patriotism  "  in  order  to 
retain  on  the  Federal  statutes  a  law  so  absurd 
that  the  Government  is  ashamed  to  admit  pub- 
licly that  the  fool  statute  exists?  Why  not  kick 
the  law  into  the  discard  right  out  in  front  of 
everybody?  Congress  enacted  it  during  the  sec- 
ond Roosevelt  Administration  immediately  after 
it  had  become  known  that  the  Secret  Service,  for 
good  and  sufficient  reasons  of  its  own,  had  been 
looking  into  certain  activities  of  a  little  group  of 
congressmen;  and  year  in  and  year  out,  in  ses- 
sion after  session  since  the  law  was  passed,  for 
years  that  number  almost  a  dozen,  the  Secret 
Service  has  tried  to  get  Congress  to  untie  the 
dangerous  hobbles  that  fasten  the  feet  of  the 
splendid  organization.  Congress  as  steadily  re- 
fuses. 

A  month  or  so  after  we  had  entered  the  war 
the  Secret  Service  clamored  so  raucously  that 
the  administration  finally  was  influenced  to  find 
a  way  round  the  law  whereby  a  few,  a  very  few, 

186 


SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT 

of  the  operatives  were  granted  an  opportunity 
to  take  up  spy  investigations  after  a  fashion. 
More  recently  there  has  been  a  slight  increase  in 
the  number  of  Secret  Service  men  "  borrowed  " 
from  the  service  for  this  work.  May  the  Gov- 
ernment continue  to  see  the  light.  In  the  mean- 
time the  Secret  Service  is  deplorably  hobbled. 
The  loyalty  and  energy  of  the  Department  of  Jus- 
tice enthusiasts  are  not  being  questioned  here, 
unless  one  stops  to  question  the  loyal  quality  of 
a  petty  jealousy  among  some  of  the  Department 
of  Justice  men,  who  resent  all  attempts  of  the 
Secret  Service  operatives  to  have  a  part  in  the 
spy  investigations. 

All  of  which  has  been  gone  into  here  at  some 
length  with  the  hope  that  the  fatuous  man  in  the 
street  will  remember,  when  he  is  proudly  talking 
of  the  radiant  qualities  of  our  Secret  Service  in 
war-time,  that  under  the  law  that  radiance  must 
be  hidden  under  a  bushel-basket;  also  to  remem- 
ber that  the  total  amount  being  spent  by  the 
Government  to  maintain  both  the  entire  Secret 
Service  of  the  country  and  the  investigating 
branch  of  the  Department  of  Justice  for  a  whole 
year  is  less  than  von  Berustorff  dealt  out  gladly 
in  one  month  to  pay  for  the  operation  of  the  Ger- 

187 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

man  Secret  Service  in  New  York  City  alone. 

In  view  of  these  things,  therefore,  it  is  well 
that  among  the  examples  of  the  new  army  in 
Washington  are  several  brilliant  men  in  their 
thirties  and  just  beyond,  noted  in  their  recent 
mufti  days  for  mental  power  that  lifted  them 
above  the  herd,  who  now  are  giving  their  days 
and  nights  to  hard  work  in  the  Intelligence  De- 
partment. As  to  the  number,  "  several "  is  the 
best  one  can  say  in  trying  to  foot  up  the  total; 
the  exact  number  cannot,  of  course,  be  told  here. 
Their  zeal  in  their  work  is  sometimes  so  intense, 
on  duty  and  off,  that  it  wrould  often  be  amusing 
if  it  were  not  also  so  commendable.  They  don't 
quite  go  to  the  extreme  of  wearing  false  whiskers, 
but  the  very  young  among  them  come  close  to 
doing  so. 

One  of  their  number  quite  had  me  thinking 
for  a  time  that  he  was  the  last  word  in  secretive- 
ness.  Across  his  khaki-clad  chest  he  sported  a 
bit  of  ribbon  which  indicated  that  he  had  seen 
service  in  a  campaign,  but  he  would  not  say  in 
what  campaign.  While  the  young  campaigner 
and  a  grizzled  old  Indian-fighter  in  the  regular 
army  and  I  were  settling  world  problems  in  the 
lobby  of  a  hotel  one  evening  I  made  it  a  point  to 

188 


SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT 

try  to  find  out  just  which  war  of  the  world  he 
had  served  through. 

"•  Oh,  in  one  of  our  Indian  wars  out  West," 
finally  he  admitted  lightly  but  would  give  no  de- 
tails. Secretly  I  marveled.  He  was  in  his  mid- 
thirties,  and  therefore  too  young,  I  thought,  to 
have  been  a  soldier  when  the  redskins  took  to  the 
war-path,  unless  he  had  drawn  his  sword  at  about 
the  mature  age  of  eight  years  at  Wounded  Knee, 
which  was  the  last  Indian  argument  worth  while 
that  I  in  my  ignorance  could  recall.  The  hoary- 
headed  old  West  Pointer  standing  with  us,  who 
had  "  fit  the  Injuns  "  from  the  Bad  Lands  to  the 
Rio  Grande  in  his  younger  days,  snorted  with 
extreme  politeness,  and  then  gazed  blankly  at  the 
"  youngster."  Evidently  the  grizzled  veteran  of 
the  plains  marveled  over  the  matter  longer  than 
I,  for  I  had  forgotten  the  yeung  captain  and  his 
campaign  ribbon  when,  a  few  days  later,  I  ran 
into  the  white-haired  regular  army  officer  again. 

"  That  kid's  Indian  campaign  kept  me  awake 
nights,"  cried  the  old  colonel ;  "  so  yesterday  I 
decided  to  look  up  his  record.  He 's  right ;  he 's 
one  of  these  Indian-fighters  all  right.  It  seems 
that  a  short  time  back  there  was  a  frowzy  old 
chief  —  he 's  probably  died  since  of  the  D.  T.'s  — 

189 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

out  in  Wyoming  who  liked  his  liquor.  One 
Round-Up  day  this  chief,  Pink  Elephant  and  his 
missus,  Queen  Alice-Sit-By-The-Fire-Water,  or 
whatever  her  name  is, —  the  old  girl  doted  on  the 
hard  stuff,  too,  and  at  last  accounts  was  ninety 
years  old  and  threatened  with  cirrhosis  of  the 
liver, —  floated  into  town  and  stole  a  small  keg 
of  Cheyenne's  best  poison.  So  Pink  Elephant 
and  Alice-Sit-By-The-Fire-Water  rolled  the  keg 
up  the  Big  Lumps  to  a  ledge  where  Pink  Ele- 
phant's two  sons  and  Alice's  sister,  old  Aunt  Liz- 
zie-Kick-A-Hole-In-The-Sky,  were  awaiting  the 
return  of  the  travelers. 

"  After  the  first  long  drink  out  of  the  keg  Pink 
Elephant  and  his  two  sons  declared  war  on  the 
United  States  of  North  America.  They  took  a 
second  swig  and  declared  war  also  on  Canada  and 
British  Columbia,  and  after  a  third  round  they 
delivered  a  final  ultimatum  which  gave  Mexico 
only  one  hour  to  accept  their  terms.  Then,  with 
all  North  America  beaten  to  its  knees,  Pink  Ele- 
phant, Alice,  Aunt  Lizzie,  and  the  boys  rolled 
the  remnants  of  the  keg  to  the  highest  crag  over- 
looking the  reservation,  and  until  far  into  the 
night  they  defied  Ireland  and  Japan  also,  punc- 
tuating their  defies  with  rifle-shots  that  were 

190 


SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT 

threatening  to  make  fine  cut  out  of  the  local  In- 
dian agent's  whole  private  stock  of  eating  plug. 

"  They  were  too  far  up  the  crag  to  send  a  po- 
lice-patrol wagon  to  the  high  spot  to  get  'em,  so 
the  agent  telephoned  into  town  for  a  squad  of 
National  Guardsmen  to  ride  out  and  end  the 
frightful  conflict.  Along  came  the  squad,  and 
in  the  band  was  this  bad  Injun-fighter  we  met  in 
the  lobby  here  the  other  night.  By  the  time  he 
and  the  rest  of  the  guardsmen  had  shinned  up 
the  crag,  Pink  Elephant,  Alice-Sit-By-The-Fire- 
Water,  old  Aunt  Lizzie-Kick-A-Hole-In-The-Sky, 
and  Pink's  boys  were  sleeping  the  war  off ;  so  the 
guardsmen  gathered  up  the  Injuns  one  by  one 
and  poured  them  all  back  into  the  keg.  That 
was  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  the  great  Pink 
Elephant  Uprising,  but  it  seems  that  this  drunk 
and  disorderly  case  got  into  the  records  of  the 
War  Department.  Therefore  it  became  an  In- 
dian War,  therefore  this  lad  here  is  entitled  to 
his  bit  of  baby  ribbon  across  the  chest.  Yes,  sir, 
that  young  veteran  's  got  a  perfect  right  to  look 
upon  this  war  with  Germany  in  that  kindly  way 
that  all  old-time  campaigners  look  upon  every 
new  scrap  that  starts." 

But  let  the  old  regulars  of  the  army  and  navy 
191 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

wax  sarcastic,  the  youngsters  at  least  are  fran- 
tically eager  to  learn  all  about  their  new  jobs, 
which  is  more  than  can  be  said  about  some  of  the 
venerable  West-Pointers  and  Annapolis  men  who 
are  versed  only  in  the  art  of  war  as  practised 
during  the  smaller  scraps  of  the  preceding  gen- 
eration. For  one  thing,  that  young  man  with  the 
harmless  bit  of  ribbon  on  his  proud  chest  had  had 
during  a  recent  civilian  life,  like  many  of  his 
brother  officers  of  the  new  army  now  in  Wash- 
ington, a  business  training  which  regular  officers 
wholly  lack,  and  the  war  work  at  the  capital  is 
largely  just  plain  business.  The  young  men 
from  civil  life  respect  the  purely  military  knowl- 
edge of  the  regulars  and  work  hard  to  absorb 
some  of  it ;  but  the  set  old  regular  not  only  has  no 
regard  for  the  volunteer  officer  as  a  soldier,  but 
shows  no  great  anxiety  to  learn  the  rules  of 
modern  business  efficiency  which  many  of  the  vol- 
unteers know  backward.  If  the  oldsters  would 
only  permit  the  young  veteran  of  the  Pink  Ele- 
phant Uprising  and  his  kind  to  jump  into  the 
work  for  which  they  are  best  fitted,  they  could 
do  much  to  relieve  the  gray-haired  regular  army 
majors  and  colonels  and  the  bald-heads  among 
the  navy's  departmental  officers  in  Washington 

192 


SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT 

of  an  immense  amount  of  necessary,  but  unimpor- 
tant, detail  that  the  older  men  still  think  they 
must  attend  to.  It  is  a  difficult  mater,  seemingly 
impossible,  to  make  the  bald-heads  understand 
in  Washington  that  this  is  a  war  that  necessi- 
tates the  renunciation  of  lifelong  professional 
habits,  motheaten  methods  that  the  older  regu- 
lar officers  had  been  cultivating  assiduously  from 
the  day  they  were  graduated  from  West  Point  or 
Annapolis  up  to  and  including  the  present  war- 
whirl  in  Washington. 

The  "  old  man  "  still  thinks  he  must  keep  up 
his  practice  of  personally  reading  all  contracts 
from  beginning  to  end,  must  read  and  answer  all 
official  correspondence,  no  matter  how  trivial, 
relating  to  his  own  particular  office  business. 
And  he  tries  to,  even  with  the  war- rush  piling  his 
desk  so  high  with  "  business  "  that  if  he  sat  up 
all  night  every  night, —  and  some  of  the  regular 
officers  are  doing  that  frequently,  too,  in  their 
mad  efforts  to  handle  personally  office  work 
which  months  ago  had  passed  far  beyond  the 
limits  of  a  one-man  job, —  he  could  n't  begin  to 
take  care  of  a  fraction  of  the  new  business 
dumped  daily  upon  his  desk. 

Perhaps  it  would  not  be  a  bad  idea  to  devise 
193 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

a  new  program  of  training  at  the  capital  of  a 
reciprocal  nature:  while  the  new  officers  fresh 
from  civil  life  are  being  taught  at  least  the  rudi- 
ments of  purely  military  knowledge,  maybe  it 
would  be  well  to  send  the  old  West  Point  and 
Annapolis  men  for  an  hour  or  so  a  day  to  one  or 
another  of  the  recently  created  war  offices  in 
Washington  over  which  the  "  captains  of  indus- 
try-' preside.  There,  in  the  presence  of  the 
"  dollar-a-year "  men  at  the  head  of  Red  Cross 
or  Council  of  National  Defense  work,  the  old 
army  and  navy  departmental  heads  might  wax 
wiser  merely  by  sitting  still  for  an  hour  or  so 
and  closely  observing  the  way  in  which  a  Henry 
P.  Davison  or  a  Bernard  M.  Baruch  canters  right 
by  detail  without  giving  it  a  passing  nod  of  rec- 
ognition. The  brilliant  masters  of  business  tech- 
nic  who  have  moved  Wall  Street  to  Washington 
so  thoroughly  that  at  last  America,  like  other 
lands,  owns  a  national  capital  which  also  has  be- 
come the  real  business  capital  of  the  country, 
would  no  more  think  of  permitting  petty  detail  to 
interfere,  as  the  military  man  still  insists  upon 
doing,  with  the  magnificent  work  they  are  doing 
in  Washington  than  Henry  P.  Davison,  say, 
would  think  of  remarking  as  he  entered  his  old 


SHERMAN  WAS  RIGHT 

office  in  the  house  of  Morgan  at  Broad  and  Wall 
streets,  "  Boy,  bring  me  all  the  mail  that  has  been 
delivered  to  the  firm  of  J.  P.  Morgan  &  Co.  dur- 
ing the  past  twenty-four  hours." 

It  may  be  recalled  that  in  the  old  days  of  a 
peacefulness  that  now  passeth  understanding  the 
regular  navy  man  under  his  breath  always  re- 
ferred to  the  Naval  Reserve  militiamen  as  the 
"Naval  Preserves,"  and  the  regular  army  men 
looked  upon  the  National  Guard  as  something 
that  was  more  to  be  pitied  than  censured.  And 
now  when  department  offices  in  Washington  are 
clogged  with  volunteer  officers  who  never  had 
even  militia  training,  but  could  write  books  on 
business  efficiency,  the  old-time  regular  is  more 
than  ever  certain  that  he  personally  must  do 
everything,  big  and  little,  in  his  particular  mili- 
tary shop.  The  regular,  wTho  for  years  had  not 
worn  a  uniform  when  he  could  get  out  of  it, 
whose  secret  sorrow  it  is  now  that  he  must  wear 
a  uniform  all  the  time,  gazes  scornfully  at  the 
fancy  fur  collars  on  the  new  officers'  overcoats, 
at  the  Sam  Brown  belts  running  at  a  rakish  di- 
agonal across  swelling  chests,  at  fierce  new  spurs 
that  never,  perhaps,  will  dig  into  the  flanks  of 
anything  more  spirited  than  the  varnished  oaken 

195 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

output  of  Grand  Rapids.  And  to  the  regular 
officer  these  expensive  fur  collars  and  natty  Sam 
Brown  belts  which  the  new  army  exults  in, —  or 
did  until  the  Government  finally  stripped  these 
bits  of  personal  vanity  from  the  shoulders  of  all 
the  grand  young  army  of  type-writing  dragoons 
in  Washington, —  were  only  concrete  evidence 
that  the  wearers  thereof  never  could  rise  to  the 
intellectual  heights  in  the  art  of  war  where  it 
becomes  necessary  to  dictate  a  mighty  military 
message  that  runs: 

"Dear  Sir: 

"Yours  of  the  12th  inst.  regarding  price  on  pint 
of  ink  for  this  office  at  hand.  For  the  luvva  Pete, 
quit  sending  prices  on  pint  bottles  of  ink — send  the 
ink." 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  thought  and 
text  of  the  sample  communication  just  quoted  is 
pure  hypothesis.  Thoroughly  as  do  the  young 
men  wearing  brand-new  uniforms  in  Washington 
know  that  the  business  house  they  have  just  left 
undoubtedly  would  send  out  for  a  bottle  of  ink 
quite  as  snappily  as  that,  quite  as  well,  and  sadly, 
do  they  know  that  Washington  military  bu- 
reaucracy never  would  venture  upon  such  snap- 

196 


piness.  The  way  one  gets  a  new  bottle  of  ink 
in  the  War  Department  is  first  to  salute  and  ask 
one's  immediate  superior  to  salute  and  ask  his 
superior  to  salute  and  ask  his  superior  to  begin 
to  tune  up  the  entire  mass  of  machinery  which 
must  be  called  into  play  when  a  government  office 
needs  a  fresh  bottle  of  ink.  Week  by  week  the 
campaign  to  capture  the  bottle  of  ink  progresses ; 
right  arms  salute  with  a  whirring  as  of  a  great 
flock  of  windmills,  battery  after  battery  of  type- 
writers are  wheeled  into  action.  Then  one  day 
a  month  or  two  later,  as  the  bottle  of  ink,  pant- 
ing from  its  long  flight,  but  still  leaping  from 
bough  to  bough  and  from  crag  to  crag  to  escape 
the  lasso  of  bright  crimson  tape  being  flung  at 
its  neck  —  about  this  time  the  new  young  officer 
who  a  month  before  had  asked  for  a  bottle  of  ink 
calls  an  office  boy  to  his  desk,  reaches  into  his 
private  pay-envelop,  and  cries,  "  Jimmy,  for 
Gawd's  sake  run  out  and  buy  me  a  bottle  of 
ink !  "  Meanwhile  the  red  tape  lasso  continues 
to  — 

But  a  mere  mention  of  the  crimson  tape,  the 
red  woolen  yarn,  and  the  various  other  ruddy- 
hued  skeins  and  spools  of  entanglements,  all 
piled  high  for  instant  use  on  the  dusty  depart- 

197 


THE  WAR-WHIRL1  IN  WASHINGTON 

mental  shelves  in  Washington,  gives  one  pause 
before  entering  upon  a  dissertation  of  the  tape 
entanglements. 

One  must  stop  and  take  a  deep  breath  before 
touching  even  lightly  upon  a  few,  very  few,  con- 
crete instances  of  the  great  indoor  sport  of  un- 
tangling the  tape. 


198 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ALL   BOUND   ROUND   WITH   A   RED  WOOL  STRING 

So  slow  to  start, 
So  fleet  of  foot — when  far  afield! 

NOTHING  is  so  impressive  round  the  capital 
in  these  days  as  the  speed  with  which  bu- 
reaucracy unties  the  surrounding  entanglements 
of  crimson  tape  long  enough  to  let  a  new  idea 
in  —  nothing,  perhaps,  except  the  speed  with 
which  bureaucracy  chucks  the  new  idea  right  out 
again. 

Take,  for  example,  the  case  of  Barney  Flynn 
of  Kenosha,  Wisconsin.  We  shall  call  him  Bar- 
ney Flynn  and  say  he  is  from  Kenosha  because 
that 's  his  name  and  that 's  where  he  is  from. 
Incidentally,  Barney  is  a  living  proof  that  oc- 
casionally there  is  great  good  even  in  war  con- 
tractors. Barney  had  an  idea,  which  he  brought 
to  Washington,  and  he  continued  to  push  his  idea 
through  the  portals  of  bureaucracy  until  he  and 
his  idea  soon  were  tangled  up  in  one  brand  of 

199 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

red-tape  that  Houdini  himself  might  hesitate 
about  attempting  to  untie. 

This  worst  brand  of  tape  is  the  sort  that  has 
stamped  all  along  its  length  the  legend,  repeated 
over  and  over  again,  "  The  department  never  did 
anything  like  that  before."  Consequently,  Bar- 
ney Flynn  was  licked  before  he  started,  for  he 
had  had  the  audacity  to  come  to  town  to  try  to 
influence  the  War  Department  actually  to  do 
something  which  it  never  had  done  before! 

Barney's  idea  was  simplicity  itself.  Listen. 
The  United  States  had  just  entered  the  World 
War ;  it  was  about  to  draft  an  army  of  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  young  jnen.  Young  men  must 
have  something  to  sleep  upon  at  night,  especially 
lads  so  utterly  fagged  out  as  these  new  soldier 
boys  were  sure  to  be  after  the  untold  hours  of 
drill  that  would  be  their  share  in  American  and 
European  training  camps;  therefore  the  depart- 
ment would  need  hundreds  of  thousands  of  new 
cots ;  and  Barney  Flynn  had  come  from  Kenosha 
to  Washington  to  tell  the  War  Department  that 
his  firm,  which  happens  to  own  the  largest  bed- 
making  plant  in  the  world,  could  turn  out  ten 
thousand  of  more  light  steel  cots  a  day,  virtually 
indestructible,  at  a  price  considerably  less  per 

200 


ALL  BOUND  ROUND 

cot  than  the  department  was  paying  for  the 
flimsy  affairs  of  wood  and  canvas  that  probably 
first  came  into  use  during  the  Second  Punic  War, 
and  which  must  be  replaced  every  few  weeks. 

Keep  in  mind,  please,  that  the  army  needed 
cots  in  a  tremendous  hurry,  that  Barney  Flynn 
could  guarantee  to  turn  cots  out  in  a  tremendous 
hurry,  that  he  wras  offering  the  War  Department 
the  best  model  of  an  article  to  be  found  in  the 
market  for  less  money  than  the  department  was/ 
paying  for  the  worst,  all  of  which  seems  perfectly 
fair.  Also  be  good  enough  to  remember  that 
these  simple  facts  were  all  thoroughly  known  to 
the  cot-buying  officials  of  the  War  Department. 
On  the  face  of  things  it  would  seem  to  the  average 
two-legged  man  that  if  Barney  Flynn  were  to 
walk  up  to  a  large  sorrel  horse,  blind  with  cata- 
racts and  stone-deaf  in  both  ears,  and  make  such 
a  proposition,  the  old  sorrel  nag  would  still  have 
enough  horse  sense  left  to  whinny  its  approval 
instanter.  Ah,  little  does  the  average  two- 
legged  man  realize  the  importance  which  bureau- 
cracy places  on  its  unanswerable  argument, 
"  We  've  never  done  it  before." 

The  War  Department  had  no  cots  except  a 
very  few  of  the  canvas  and  wooden  contraptions 

201 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

of  antiquity,  for  which  it  paid  $3.75  apiece. 
Barney  Flynn's  cot,  made  of  old  railroad  steel 
rerolled,  as  comfortable  as  a  bed,  attractive  to 
the  eye  and  capable  of  supporting  a  dead  weight 
of  more  than  three  thousand  pounds, —  all  of 
which  Barney  demonstrated  satisfactorily  to  the 
department, —  could  be  purchased  from  Barney 
at  the  rate  of  ten  thousand  a  day  at  a  cost  of 
only  $3.10  each.  An  order  for,  say,  two  hundred 
thousand  of  the  best  cots  would  mean  a  saving 
to  the  department  of  over  $130,000  as  compared 
with  an  order  for  the  same  number  of  worst  cots, 
not  to  mention  the  immeasurable  economy  in 
buying  a  cot  that  would  have  to  be  replaced  every 
few  weeks. 

Even  before  Barney  had  breezed  into  Washing- 
ton all  these  indisputable  facts  had  been  ham- 
mered at  bureaucracy.  The  top-notch  salesmen 
of  Barney's  firm  had  bobbed  up  in  the  capital 
immediately  upon  the  outbreak  of  war,  and 
with  confidence  in  their  innocent  hearts  had  told 
the  department  all.  If  the  salesmen  had  had 
a  bit  more  experience  with  the  methods  of  what 
has  not  inappropriately  been  called  "Washing- 
ton, B.  C.,"  they  would  have  known  that  if  a  thing 
"  never  has  been  done  before,"  it  is  next  to  im- 

202 


ALL  BOUND  ROUND 

possible  to  find  a  bureau  chief  who  offhand  will 
do  it.  There  ain't  no  such  animal.  The  cot 
salesmen  should  have  remembered  the  experiences 
of  predecessors  innumerable  who  vainly  had 
tried  to  offer  the  Government  the  first  successful 
Lewis  gun,  the  first  successful  submarine,  and 
uncounted  other  first  successful  military  ideas 
which  Americans  of  initiative  sadly  had  to  wrap 
up  again,  and  then  successfully  peddle  to  some 
other  Government.  And  so  the  crack  salesmen 
were  compelled  to  decamp  from  Washington  in 
disgust  and  sadly  break  the  news  to  Barney 
Flynn  that  the  directing  military-supplies  gentle- 
man of  a  cotless  army,  which  was  about  to  enter 
the  greatest  war,  had  refused  even  to  discuss  the 
self-evident  fact  that  countless  cots  of  some  sort 
would  have  to  be  purchased  immediately.  The 
heap  big  chiefs  at  Washington,  so  the  salesmen 
reported,  had  listened  blankly  to  all  the  details 
offered,  and  then  had  solemnly  turned  away  and 
resumed  silently  the  chewing  of  the  cud. 

"  Well,  men,"  said  Barney  Flynn,  "  I  'm  not 
a  regular  salesman,  but  I  think  I  '11  buy  me  a 
one-way  ticket  to  Washington  and  stick  round 
there  for  a  spell/'  Whereupon  into  Washington 
from  Kenosha  slid  Barney  across  a  rainbow  of 

203 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

hope.  As  proof  that  when  an  idea  does  get  far 
enough  past  the  outer  red-tape  entanglements  its 
progress  is  rapid,  one  has  only  to  be  told  that 
very  few  Washington  days  and  nights  had  passed 
over  the  fair,  but  beaded,  brow  of  Barney  Flynn 
before  he  had  brought  bureaucracy  round  to  the 
point  where  it  was  giving  vent  to  spoken  words. 
Instead  of  listening  blankly  and  then  turning 
away  in  silence  to  resume  the  cud-chewing,  Bar- 
ney in  time  had  progressed  so  far  that  a  first  lord 
of  the  army  bedchamber  opened  his  mouth  long 
enough  to  say,  "  No !  " 

Thus  encouraged,  Barney  Flynn  sat  up  most 
of  that  night  in  his  hotel  room  in  Washington 
arranging  photographs,  blue  prints,  a  prospectus 
describing  his  cot,  and  then  sat  round  for  an- 
other hour  while  trying  to  marshal  a  string  of 
effective  arguments  into  line.  But  try  and  try 
as  he  would,  Barney  could  think  of  only  one  silly 
old  argument :  that  his  idea  of  offering  the  best 
article  for  less  money  than  the  prospective  cus- 
tomer was  paying  for  the  worst  had  an  element 
of  common  sense  concealed  in  it  somewhere. 
Barney  stormed  the  portals  of  bureaucracy  again 
and  again  and  again.  He  varied  his  daily  strug- 
gles through  the  red-tape  entanglements  one  aft- 

204 


ALL  BOUND  ROUND 

ernoon  by  bringing  along  a  little  army  he  had 
drafted  himself  —  about  a  score  of  husky  work- 
men of  an  average  weight  of  165  and  a  fraction 
pounds.  He  set  up  one  of  his  cots  for  the  edifica- 
tion of  bureaucracy,  and  then  commanded  eight- 
een units  of  his  little  army  —  a  total  weight  of 
2976  pounds  of  humanity,  or  all  that  could  find  a 
foothold  on  the  springs  —  to  stand  on  the  cot  si- 
multaneously. And  the  eighteen  stoop  upon  the 
assembled  cot,  the  human  overhang  of  the  grin- 
ning group  clasping  one  another  about  the  waist 
to  keep  its  balance;  and  the  suspended  cot- 
springs  held  the  great  weight  without  a  single 
strand  of  steel  wire  showing  any  signs  that  the 
cot  had  begun  to  rip,  ravel,  or  run  down  at  the 
heel. 

Straightaway  bureaucracy  decided  that  this 
persistent  Barney  person  must  be  squelched.  If 
a  thunderous  "  No  " !  delivered  each  day  with  in- 
creasing volume,  would  not  rid  the  department 
of  his  presence,  it  was  time  that  the  final  step 
was  taken.  Down  from  a  dusty  shelf  bureau- 
cracy took  a  phonograph  record  of  its  pet  argu- 
ment, all  bound  round  with  red-woolen  string, 
and  after  dusting  it  off  began  to  let  it  squeak  its 
rusty  throated  refrain :  "  Your  idea  has  its  mer- 

205 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

its,  but  —  it  has  never  been  doiie  before."  And 
then  one  morning  when  Barney  Flynn  strolled 
into  the  department  to  spend  the  day  as  usual, 
listening  to  the  record  squeak  and  squeak,  a  first 
lord  of  the  army  bedchamber  greeted  him  with 
brand-new  animation.  On  the  bureaucrat's  face 
was  a  smile  that  glows  best  on  the  face  of  a  man 
who  realizes  that  for  some  time  he  has  been 
merely  stubborn,  but  suddenly  has  hit  upon  an 
argument  that  really  is  unanswerable. 

"  Flynn,"  cried  Bureaucracy,  triumphantly, 
"  your  cot  is  impossible.  We  've  learned  that 
your  cot  would  take  up  about  twice  as  much 
room  in  the  hold  of  a  freighter  as  the  canvas  cot. 
Of  course  whatever  cot  we  buy  will  have  to  be 
shipped  abroad  in  great  quantities.  In  these 
days  of  ship  shortage  lack  of  bulk  is  all  impor- 
tant." 

And  genius  having  spoken,  the  office  boy  held 
the  door  open  wide  for  the  final  exit  of  Barney 
Flynn. 

"  Interesting,  but  unimportant,"  said  Barney, 
removing  his  overcoat  and  pulling  up  a  chair. 
"  What 's  the  life  of  a  canvas  cot?  " 

"  Ninety  days." 

"  What 's  the  life  of  one  of  our  steel  cots?  " 
206 


ALL  BOUND  ROUND 

"  Er  —  years ;  indefinite,  I  take  it." 

"  Well,  for  once  you  take  it  right.  Ships  car- 
rying the  canvas  cots  to  France  would  have  to 
cross  the  ocean  four  times  a  year  to  keep  the 
initial  shipment  replenished.  The  same  fleet  of 
freighters,  loaded  with  steel  cots,  would  make  the 
trip  once,  and  never  have  to  make  it  again  for 
the  same  purpose  as  long  as  the  war  lasted.  So 
that  ends  that  argument.  Come!  come!  come! 
it 's  your  next  shot." 

"  Well  —  er  —  as  we  've  told  you  repeatedly, 
Flynn,  you  are  suggesting  an  idea  which  never 
has  been  tried  in  the  whole  history  of  this  de- 
partment." WThich  left  the  entire  matter  back 
where  it  had  been  before  God  made  iron  and  man 
made  steel.  And  in  the  meantime  the  patter  of 
thousands  on  thousands  of  the  toddling  feet  of 
the  new  young,  grand  young  Army  of  the  Repub- 
lic could  be  heard  as  it  began  to  approach  from 
afar  off,  and  it  had  not  a  crib  in  which  to  lay  its 
head. 

Zowie!  Suddenly  upon  Washington  burst 
Julius  Rosenwald  as  head  of  the  supplies 
department  of  the  Advisory  Commission  of  the 
Council  of  National  Defense. 

"  Cots !  "  cried  Julius. 
207 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

"  We  make  'em,"  said  Barney. 

"  What  kind?  "  said  Julius. 

"  Best  for  least,"  said  Barney. 

"  How  fast?  "  said  Julius. 

"  Ten  thousand  a  day,"  said  Barney. 

"  Then  why  in  the  name  of  God  and  America 
do  you  stand  around  here  talking  about  them  ?  " 
screamed  Julius.  "  Make  'em !  dammit !  make 
'em ! " 

Barney  Flynn's  office  equipment  is  his  hat  and 
the  handiest  long-distance  telephone  operator. 
He  grabbed  his  hat,  and  in  one  jump  landed  feet 
first  in  a  telephone-booth.  And  as  he  is  the  only 
person  in  the  world  who  can  squeeze  compar- 
atively quick  service  out  of  the  Washington  tel- 
ephone company,  it  was  not  so  indecently  long 
a  time  before  he  was  talking  to  the  home  plant 
in  the  middle  West  and  telling  the  boss  that  he 
had  better  begin  to  rout  out  the  night  shift,  inas- 
much as  the  factory  had  just  got  a  little  order 
that  might  take  up  a  lot  of  the  boys'  spare  mo- 
ments. As  the  result  of  a  brief  talk  with  a 
genius  among  merchants,  who,  throughout  a  ca- 
reer that  had  placed  him  in  the  forefront  of  a 
nation  of  mighty  commercial  geniuses,  never  had 
spurned  goods  because  they  happened  to  be  the 

208 


ALL  BOUND  ROUND 

best  for  the  least  money,  Barney  Flynn  had  re- 
ceived an  initial  order  for  five  hundred  thousand 
of  his  cots  at  $3.10  each,  a  saving  of  65  cents 
on  each  cot  for  the  War  Department,  or  a  total 
saving,  as  compared  with  an  order  for  the  same 
number  of  cots  of  the  Second  Punic  War  type, 
of  $325,000  on  this  first  order  alone.  If  the  steel 
cots  had  been  sold  at  a  dollar  more  apiece  than 
the  old  cots  they  would  have  been  worth  the 
money  to  the  army.  Almost  before  Barney  could 
get  the  Washington  exchange  to  put  his  second 
long-distance  call  through  to  the  home  plant  he 
had  sold  the  army  $3,000,000  worth  of  cots,  once 
real  business  had  taken  bureaucracy  by  the 
throat  and  had  shaken  some  sense  into  it.  Then 
Barney  evolved  a  hospital  "  bed  "  from  the  hum- 
ble framework  of  his  cot,  lengthened  the  legs  of 
the  cot  and  ran  a  metal  rod  high  above  the 
springs  to  support  mosquito  netting,  and  he 
promptly  sold  the  Government  an  initial  con- 
signment of  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  the  hospital 
cots  also.  And  only  a  few  additional  weeks  of 
our  war  preparations  had  come  and  gone  when 
the  light  little  steel  cots  were  forming  real  beds 
for  weary  soldier  boys  throughout  the  sixteen 
national  training  camps,  the  sixteen  National 

209 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

Army  cantonments,  and  steadily  were,  and  still 
are,  being  shipped  to  France.  Doubtless  of  vast 
importance  is  the  fortune  saved  on  each  order  for 
the  new  cots,  but  of  much  more  interest  to  all  of 
us  is  a  comment  from  the  front  concerning  these 
cots  which  recently  I  happened  upon.  It  means 
more  than  mere  fortunes,  because  it  tells  of 
added  rest  and  content  which  cots  that  bureau- 
cracy had  spurned  are  bringing  to  our  soldier 
boys  in  France.  The  comment  on  the  cots  oc- 
curred in  the  opening  sentences  of  a  letter  from 
an  American  lad  abroad  which  was  published  in 
a  New  York  newspaper1  during  our  first  war 
winter. 

"Dear  Jo- Jo,  Jo  and  Joe,"  the  letter  began, 
"  our  present  camp  is  far  superior  to  our  first  [in 
France].  We  sleep  in  little  iron  beds,  and  I 
tell  you  the  boys  feel  mighty  good  at  the  idea 
of  going  to  bed  for  the  first  time  in  four 
months ! " 

In  view  of  which  one  might  say  that  Barney 
Flynn,  who  merely  stood  and  waited,  also  served. 

But,  unfortunately,  they  are  not  all  Barney 
Flynns,  these  war-order  folk  who  form  a  great 
part  of  the  boom-town  element  which  clutters  up 

iNew  York  Evening  Sun,  January  2,  1918. 
210 


ALL  BOUND  ROUND 

the  capital.  Weaving  through  the  crowds  in 
hungry  fashion,  in  the  hotel  lobbies,  the  streets, 
clamoring  for  audience  before  the  seats  of  the 
mighty,  are  the  profiteers,  in  numbers  so  osten- 
tatious that  their  omnivorous  omnipresence  has 
caused  Washington  to  coin  the  excellent  word 
"  patrioteer."  And  cheek  by  jowl  with  the  pa- 
trioteers,  brothers  in  spirit,  are  unnumbered  in- 
ventors of  the  claptrap  class.  These,  too,  jam 
the  corridors  and  entrances  as  they  chatter  of 
the  merits  of  their  particular  patented  camp-kit, 
belt  buckle,  or  what  not,  which  as  a  rule  would 
be  useful  to  no  one  except  the  inventor.  If 
adopted  by  the  Government,  the  knickknack  in  a 
day  would  put  the  inventive  promoter  in  the  en- 
viable state  where  annually  he  could  swear  off 
his  war  taxes. 

And  then  there  is  the  other  kind  of  "  inventor," 
he  of  the  long  hair  and  baggy  clothes  and  moody 
countenance,  pathetic  souls  who,  like  most  of  the 
rest  of  us,  differ  from  the  admittedly  insane 
chiefly  in  the  matter  of  residence.  Let  a  yelp 
of  excitement  arise  in  any  place  in  the  land,  and 
straightway  the  half  witted  will  flock  toward  the 
uproar.  Elijah  Dowie  had  n't  been  in  Manhat- 
tan a  day  when  Carrie  Nation,  the  gentleman 

211 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

who  knew  himself  as  "John  the  Baptist  the 
Second,"  and  all  the  rest  of  the  grand  army  of 
crackpates  were  coursing  up  and  down  Broad- 
way. And  so  the  cordons  of  red-tape  round  the 
bureaucracies  have  at  least  one  merit :  they  keep 
the  half  witted  and  their  cracked  ideas  without 
the  portals ;  if  one  of  them  got  far  enough  indoors 
he  might  have  his  "  idea  "  adopted  by  some  bu- 
reaucrat who,  if  he  had  a  little  more  brains, 
would  be  half  witted  himself.  One  wonders 
where  these  poorly  clad,  underfed  "  inventors  " 
scraped  together  the  car-fare  to  join  the  crowd 
that  forms  the  new  capital  or  how  they  live  when 
they  get  there.  To  these  poor  devils  the  devel- 
opment of  a  counter-irritant  for  the  U-boat  peril 
seems  chiefly  to  absorb  their  "  thought."  Nets 
projecting  round  the  water-line  of  transports,  no- 
tions quite  as  absurd  about  "  magnetizing  "  the 
U-boats  and  so  rendering  them  helpless,  these 
and  similar  suggestions  form  by  far  the  greater 
part  of  the  stock  of  intellectual  contributions 
which  they  seek  to  bring  personally  to  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Naval  Consulting  Board.  It  should 
be  said  in  passing  that  Rear-Admiral  William 
Strother  Smith  and  his  associates  at  the  head  of 
the  inventions  section  of  the  new  Naval  Con- 

212 


ALL  BOUND  BOUND 

suiting  Board,  and  their  co-workers  in  the  inven- 
tions branch  of  the  army,  now  are  welcoming  any 
and  all  suggestions ;  for  tucked  away  in  the  silli- 
est notion  sometimes  may  be  found  the  germ  of 
a  valuable  idea. 

One  of  the  crackpates  I  met  up  with  had  blue 
prints  of  a  war-ship  which  was  to  revolutionize 
navigation.  Away  with  elaborate  engines  for 
marine  motive  power;  just  rig  up  a  powerful 
pump  in  the  ship,  and  the  thing  was  done !  Be- 
low the  water-line  of  the  bow  of  the  ship  designed 
by  this  particular  genius  was  to  be  a  big  round 
hole,  with  a  similar  hole  below  the  water-line  at 
the  stern.  The  bow  hole  and  the  opening  at  the 
stern  respectively  were  to  form  the  entrance  and 
exit  of  a  great  steel  pipe  which  was  to  run  the 
length  of  the  hold.  And  attached  to  the  pipe- 
line was  to  be  a  pump  of  tremendous  suction 
power,  which  would  draw  the  water  into  the  pipe 
at  the  bow  and  send  it  out  the  stern  opening,  a 
racing  "  cable  "or  "  rope  "  of  water  which  would 
pull  the  ship  along  at  incredible  speed.  It  was 
a  cute  little  idea  and  extremely  simple. 

And  then  I  got  into  conversation  with  still  an- 
other who  had  a  scheme  for  wiping  out  the  whole 
German  navy  in  one  quick  moment,  if  the  Gov- 

213 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

eminent  would  but  listen  to  him.  All  he  wanted 
the  navy  to  do  was  to  cut  all  the  Atlantic  cables 
quietly,  close  to  the  European  shore,  and  then 
have  the  eastern  ends  of  the  cables  picked  up 
and  hurriedly  towed  westward  with  great  speed 
and  secrecy.  Next  these  loose  ends  of  the  cables 
were  to  be  fastened  to  some  good  strong  West  In- 
dian island  capable  of  standing  the  strain,  and 
the  cables  were  to  be  stretched  tautly,  leaving 
them  in  long  strings  just  below  the  surface  of  the 
ocean  and  not  far  out  from  and  generally  par- 
allel with  the  Atlantic  coast  of  the  United  States. 
Powerful  mines  were  to  be  attached  to  the 
strings  of  cables,  so  close  together  that  no  fleet 
of  ships  could  sail  over  the  cables  without  some 
vital  part  of  each  vessel  being  compelled  to  pass 
directly  above  at  least  one  of  the  mines.  Then, 
when  all  was  set,  and  all  the  mines  had  been 
connected  up  with  electric  wiring,  a  swift  Amer- 
ican fleet  was  to  cross  the  Atlantic  and  steam  so 
tantalizingly  close  to  the  German  coast  that  the 
whole  German  grand  fleet  would  dash  forth  to 
give  battle.  Instantly  the  American  fleet  was  to 
turn  tail  and  flee  for  home  harbors;  and  just  as 
the  pursuing  German  fleet  was  crossing  above  the 
mine-laden  cables  —  pop!  pop!  pop!  and  the 

214 

j 


ALL  BOUND  ROUND 

whole  German  navy  would  —  But  the  details 
of  the  horribly  bloody  slaughter  are  too  sicken- 
ing to'  go  into  here.  The  idea  presented  only 
one  possibility  that  prevented  it  from  being  per- 
fect: maybe  the  German  fleet  would  not  come 
out! 

Now,  here  was  a  genius  who  had  a  suggestion 
which  had  one  thing  in  common  with  Barney 
Flynn's  idea  —  neither  had  "  ever  been  done  be- 
fore." Red-tape,  or  the  stupidity  which  always 
is  the  concomitant  of  red-tape,  had  treated  both 
ideas  the  same  and  barred  them.  The  insane 
man  and  the  man  with  the  real  idea  were  iden- 
tical in  the  eyes  of  bureaucracy.  Therefore  bu- 
reaucracy does  not  reason,  therefore  never  is 
right  except  by  accident ;  and  the  present  is  the 
last  time  in  the  history  of  the  world  to  set  any 
store  on  accident. 

How  War  Department  bureaucracy  can  coddle 
an  unimportant  bit  of  picayune  official  procedure 
and  exalt  it  to  the  high  dignity  of  an  unbreakable 
norm  is  best  illustrated  by  the  recent  experiences 
in  Washington  of  one  of  the  country's  foremost 
authorities  on  the  science  of  forestry,  a  science, 
alas !  in  which  the  nation  is  woefully  deficient  in 
knowledge  and  worse  in  practice.  The  scientist 

215 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

in  mind  was  anxious  to  place  his  splendid  stock 
of  special  knowledge  at  the  service  of  a  warring 
United  States,  wherefore  he  was  overjoyed  upon 
receiving  an  urgent  appeal  from  highest  officers 
on  America's  battle-line  in  France,  who  knew  of 
his  remarkable  mental  equipment  and  energy,  to 
hurry  through  the  formalities  of  getting  a  com- 
mission and  then  join  them  as  quickly  as  possible 
abroad.  The  American  soldiers  of  very  high 
rank  had  seen  as  soon  as  they  arrived  within 
earshot  of  the  German  guns  in  France  that  this 
leader  in  the  science  of  forestry  could  render  the 
American  Army  abroad  a  certain  service  they 
had  in  mind  in  better  fashion  than  any  man  in 
all  America. 

The  forestry  expert,  so  the  army  men  had  ex- 
plained when  sending  for  him,  first  would  have  to 
get  his  commission  before  he  would  be  able  to 
work  properly  with  the  army  on  the  big  job  that 
had  been  mapped  out  for  him  by  the  general  offi- 
cers abroad.  Immediately  the  scientist,  who  is 
not  old  and  is  in  perfect  health,  went  before  an 
army  surgeon  in  Boston  for  his  physical  examina- 
tion. The  surgeon  noted  a  defect  in  the  scien- 
tist's left  eye.  Yes,  admitted  the  potential  major, 
that  left  eye  was  n't  of  much  use  and  had  n't  been 

216 


ALL  BOUND  BOUND 

since  childhood ;  nevertheless,  it  never  had  inter- 
fered, he  added,  with  the  quality  and  quantity 
of  his  work,  a  fact  self-evident  from  the  high 
place  he  had  taken  in  his  profession.  And  then 
he  told  in  detail  who  it  was  that  had  asked,  al- 
most commanded  him  to  come  into  the  service, 
the  urgency  of  the  need  of  his  services  in  France, 
and  the  additional  detail  that  the  circumstance 
of  the  foggy  left  eye  was  known  to  the  officers 
abroad  who  had  sent  for  him.  And  the  army 
surgeon  in  Boston,  who  figuratively  was  as  far 
from  the  War  Department's  red-tape  counter  and 
its  influences  as  the  officers  in  France  were,  was 
still  a  normal  human  being.  He  "  passed  "  the 
scientist  quickly,  gave  him  a  clean  bill  of  health. 
Promptly  the  forestry  man  wound  up  his  affairs, 
got  his  commission,  and  bought  his  khaki  clothes 
writh  the  little  gold  leaf  on  the  shoulders.  And 
then  after  kissing  his  young  wife  and  two  chil- 
dren good-by  in  Boston,  he  jumped  into  a  taxicab 
headed  for  the  South  Station,  and  immediately 
made  a  serious  blunder :  he  bought  a  ticket  that 
would  take  him  to  Washington. 

He  did  n't  want  to  go  to  Washington,  he  had 
to  go.  Preliminary  work  on  his  new  job  kept 
him  there  until  the  eve  of  the  day  he  was  to  sail 

217 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

for  France,  kept  him  there  so  close  to  his  sailing- 
time,  in  fact,  that  he  had  to  bring  his  wife  and 
children  to  the  capital  for  the  final  farewell. 
Then,  just  before  he  was  to  board  the  train  that 
was  to  take  him  to  his  point  of  embarkation  for 
France,  he  and  a  little  group  of  brother-officers 
who  were  to  accompany  him  abroad  went 
through  the  military  etiquette  of  calling  at  the 
War  Department  to  make  a  formal  visit  of  brev- 
ity in  the  office  of  their  immediate  superiors  be- 
fore leaving  for  France.  There  was  a  pleasant 
little  function  of  a  few  minutes'  duration,  hand- 
shakes, a  word  of  good  luck  and  farewell  from 
the  superiors,  then  the  open  door  leading  to 
the  avenue  and  the  glories  of  fair  France. 

The  new  major  was  in  the  act  of  backing  re- 
spectfully out  the  open  door.  Ah,  little  did  he 
know  that  on  the  instant  one  of  those  little 
bearded  Glooms  that  Tom  Powers  scatters  about 
his  caricatures  had,  with  saturnine  grimace, 
stretched  a  tiny  thread  of  red-woolen  string 
above  the  door-sill  to  trip  him.  And  at  the  mo- 
ment he  was  beginning  to  feel  the  corridor  air 
currents  on  the  back  of  his  neck,  just  when 
he  was  thinking  that  the  superior  officer  had 
played  his  last  Victor  record  and  was  all  fin- 

218 


ALL  BOUND  EOUND 

ished,  the  red  string  caught  him  in  the  back  of 
the  legs,  and  he  was  hamstrung ! 

"  One  —  mo-ment,  Majah,"  cried  the  superior, 
precisely  as  Columbus  on  another  occasion  had 
blurted  suddenly  to  the  second  mate,  "Hist! 
Can  the  chatter,  mate !  Damme !  I  see  the  ga- 
bles of  a  summer-resort  hotel ! "  "  One  —  mo- 
ment!  What 's  wrong  with  your  left  eye?  " 

It  was  foggy,  explained  the  new  Majah.  Fur- 
thermore, it  always  had  been  foggy.  Its  foggi- 
ness  never  had  interfered  in  the  slightest  with 
the  Majah's  work.  A  general  officer  whose  name 
is  now  a  household  word  in  America  knew  that 
left  eye  intimately,  added  the  Majah,  when 
despatching  word  to  him  to  hurry  to  France. 

Wrong,  all  wrong;  and  with  the  feverishness 
that  is  noticeable  in  our  best  bureaucratic  circles 
only  when  a  real  idea  steps  within  range  of  the 
trusty  old  blunderbuss,  the  boss  dug  into  the  dust 
until  he  had  brought  to  light  the  jolly  old  Rule 
Book,  Vol.  I,  No.  1,  which  had  been  celebrated 
as  a  best  seller  in  Government  circles  during  the 
War  of  1812.  No,  siree!  Lookit,  Majah!  It 
says  right  here  in  print,  at  this  here  page,  marked 
with  the  faded,  old  red  baby  ribbon,  that  no  man 
with  one  defective  eye  may  be  sent  into  active 

219 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

service,  because  if  he  were  to  lose  the  other  eye 
he  would  "  become  a  charge  on  the  Government." 
And  gosh!  Majah,  you  had  almost  got  out  that 
door !  Whew ! 

Is  that  the  only  reason,  Boss,  for  not  letting 
a  man  with  one  defective  eye  tackle  this  job? 

Yep,  and  it 's  enough,  sir.  Any  rule  that  is  a 
rule  must  be  right  or  it  would  n't  be  a  rule. 

But  listen,  Fathead, —  I  mean  Field  Marshal ; 
pardon  me, —  the  rule  does  n't  apply  to  me. 

How  so? 

Because  I  am  independently  wealthy ;  because 
I  am  gladly  giving  up  a  large  part  of  my  in- 
come to  perform  this  needed  service;  because, 
if  I  lost  my  perfect  eye,  the  loss  would  be  of 
financial  benefit  to  me,  inasmuch  as  for  reasons 
I  have  n't  time  to  go  into  now,  Boss, —  I  '11  miss 
my  train  if  I  don't  get  out  of  here  soon, —  I  can 
make  more  money  stone-blind  at  home  here  than 
I  can  serving  with  at  least  one  perfect  eye  in 
France ;  because  —  oh,  dammit !  because  you  in- 
sult me  when  you  say  that  I  would  make  the 
Government  support  me  if  I  were  injured  in 
France.  Great  heavens,  Boss,  do  you  mean  to 
stand  there  and  insist  that  the  War  Department, 
at  a  time  like  this,  believes  that  a  line  of  ancient 

220 


ALL  BOUND  BOUND 

type  in  that  faded  old  almanac  of  1812  is  of  more 
importance  than  a  big  job  well  done  for  the  boys 
in  France? 

Ab-so-lute-ly,  Majah !  Tear  up  your  passport, 
Majah ;  you  're  down  —  out  —  through. 

But,  Boss,  let  me  have  a  final  word :  I  'm  not 
a  "  soldier  " ;  I  don't  make  any  pretense  at  being 
a  military  man.  My  soldier  clothes,  even  my 
commission,  are  only  mere  technicalities,  simply 
a  part  of  the  formalism,  all  necessary,  no  doubt, 
that  must  be  gone  through  with  before  I  can 
begin  to  unload  my  stock  of  intellectual  goods 
at  the  point  in  the  field  where  the  army  stands 
most  in  need  of  my  — 

Hush,  Majah!  We  executives  have  massive 
work  here  to  do,  and  you  are  delaying  it.  Majah, 
this  way  out. 

And  so  the  great  services  of  that  particular 
expert  were  lost  to  the  lads  in  France,  who 
needed  him  then  and  need  him  immeasurably 
more  now.  Bureaucracy  would  not  permit  him 
to  tackle  his  job  then,  and  it  has  not  changed 
its  "  mind  "  since. 

In  justice  to  red-tape,  it  must  be  said  that 
nothing  can  show  greater  speed  and  efficiency 
in  accomplishing  what  it  sets  out  to  do  than  the 

221 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

red-tape  sections  of  the  War  Department.  But 
bureaucracy  shows  speed  only  when  doing  some- 
thing wrong  —  always.  Solemnly  certain  that 
fuss  and  feathers  and  stiff-necked  observance  of 
"etiquette"  is  of  far  greater  importance  than 
practical  accomplishment,  red-tape  has  been 
known  to  keep  army  supplies  —  to  take  only  one 
instance  of  a  number  so  vast  that  Washington 
has  come  to  look  upon  stupidity  as  the  accepted 
thing  —  lying  at  a  railway  freight-station  at  the 
capital  for  a  few  days  less  than  a  month,  at  a 
time  when  soldiers  billeted  in  Washington  were 
in  immediate  need  of  those  supplies.  It  so  hap- 
pened that  at  about  the  time  the  supplies  reached 
the  capital  a  certain  officer  in  the  department 
who,  according  to  the  rules,  would  have  to  be 
officially  "notified,"  with  much  saluting  and 
click  of  heels,  that  the  goods  had  arrived  before 
they  could  be  released  from  bondage,  had  had 
himself  thoroughly  dusted  off,  and  then  had  gone 
away  from  there  to  attend  to  some  business  in 
another  city  for  a  few  weeks.  The  department 
knew  that  the  shipment  had  arrived,  the  soldiers 
in  crying  need  of  the  equipment  knew  it,  every- 
body knew  it.  Doubtless  the  bureaucrat  who 
had  left  town  must  have  known  that  the  articles 

222 


ALL  BOUND  ROUND 

would  arrive  about  the  time  he  was  leaving  or 
shortly  after  he  had  gone.  But  he  had  departed 
without  delegating  any  one  to  receive  the  proper 
salutes  in  his  absence;  wherefore  for  about  four 
weeks,  or  until  the  officer  had  returned  and  had 
heard  the  heel-clicks  with  his  own  long  and 
pointed  and  furry  ears,  the  equipment  lay  idle 
in  a  freight-yard.  The  salute  and  heel-clicks 
were  of  first  importance;  the  war  and  its  needs 
were  secondary ! 

Nothing  could  be  more  impressive  than  the 
speed  with  which  bureaucracy  (and  bureau- 
cracy's blood  kin,  politics)  put  a  shiny  set  of 
well-greased  skids  under  Major  General  Leonard 
Wood  in  the  first  moments  of  the  war,  the  skids 
pointed  toward  a  spot  which  the  Administration 
hoped  fondly  was  the  Land  of  Oblivion.  In  an 
instant  bureaucracy  ran  so  joyfully  and  so  far 
forward  to  place  the  skids  that  it  took  the  old 
gentleman  days  to  puff  back  to  his  starting-point. 
When  it  came  to  ordering  window-frames  and 
doors  for  the  wooden  cities  about  to  be  built  on 
cantonment  sites,  bureaucracy  strained  the 
creaky  old  spinal  column  in  hurrying  to  do 
so  simple  a  thing  all  wrong,  once  it  had 
arranged  all  the  preliminary  details  incorrectly 

223 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

down  to  the  last  botched  detail.  Old  Man 
Bureaucrat  himself  ordered  330,000  doors  and 
660,000  windows  in  a  jiffy,  quite  overlooking 
the  fact  that  the  windows  as  ordered  were 
not  of  the  necessary  standard  size.  Also  the 
old  boy,  who  daily  was  growing  to  look  more 
like  a  bottle  in  that  all  his  development  was 
from  the  neck  down,  had  ordered  doors  de- 
signed with  the  perpendicular  panels  of  other 
days.  Doors  like  that  look  lovely  in  the  quaint 
old  colonial  homes  of  Salem,  but  it  so  happened 
that  the  mills  which  were  to  turn  out  the  big 
order  of  doors  for  the  cantonment  shacks  were 
equipped  with  machinery  installed  with  the  idea 
of  making  doors  designed  along  the  lines  of  the 
horizontal  panels  of  modernity;  and  before  the 
order  could  be  filled  the  mill  machinery  would 
have  to  be  ripped  out  and  replaced.  Fortu- 
nately, some  one  with  at  least  a  teaspoonful  of 
gray  matter  woke  up  with  a  yawn  at  high  noon 
and  corrected  the  door  and  window  errors  at  the 
last  minute. 

Even  ship -"building  was  delayed  by  red -tape  en- 
tanglements long  after  bureaucracy,  politics,  and 
everything  else  under  heaven  had  ceased  brawl- 
ing and  chattering  its  monkey -language  squabble 

224 


And  then  there  is  the  other  kind  of  "inventor" 


ALL  BOUND  ROUND 

as  to  what  material  the  ships  were  to  be  built  of. 
The  preliminaries  for  the  construction  and  op- 
eration of  government  shipyards  at  Bristol 
Point,  Hog  Island,  and  Port  Newark  were  at- 
tended to  with  commendable  alacrity,  and  then 
the  contracts  for  building  the  yards  where  the 
ships  were  to  be  fashioned  were  all  drawn  up 
by  General  Goethals.  Meanwhile,  in  that  par- 
ticular week,  and  the  next,  and  the  week  after 
that,  and  then  for  a  stretch  of  many  more  weeks, 
the  U-boats  merrily  were  paving  the  floor  of  the 
ocean  with  anything  in  the  shipping  line  that 
happened  over  the  western  horizon;  and  while 
those  weeks  stretched  on  and  on  and  on  several 
sweet  old  grandmothers  in  trousers  sat  in  their 
Washington  offices  with  their  tatting  in  their 
laps,  knitting  skein  after  skein  of  bright-red  yarn 
into  cocoons  that  held  the  contracts  splendidly 
inactive.  To  strip  enough  red  yarn  off  those  con- 
tracts to  permit  even  the  signing  of  the  contracts 
took  four  months. 

Officers  fresh  from  civil  life,  whose  whole 
training,  therefore,  had  been  in  another  world, 
where  red-tape  and  sand  in  the  cylinders  are  syn- 
onymous, were  put  to  work  by  the  surgical 
branch  of  the  army  to  select  sites  and  complete 

225 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

the  preliminary  arrangements  for  erecting  re- 
ceiving hospitals  for  the  wounded  lads  momen- 
tarily expected  to  arrive  from  France.  Promptly 
they  decided  upon  the  sites  and  finished  their 
work  up  to  the  actual  first  steps  in  building. 
Then  they  stood  round  expectantly,  eager  for 
grandma  to  make  the  next  move.  The  autumn 
of  1917  came  and  went.  Grandma  glanced  up 
from  her  tatting  long  enough  to  note  that  snow 
had  begun  to  fill  the  December  air.  In  time  she 
had  the  withered  old  Christmas-tree  taken  out 
in  the  back  yard  and  burned.  The  new  year  was 
growing  from  swaddling  clothes  to  pinafores,  to 
knickers;  and  all  along  the  sodden  fields  of 
France  the  guns  were  thundering,  and  the  lads 
from  Painted  Post  and  Louisville  and  Valley 
Stream  were  tumbling  forward,  their  arms  limp 
or  shattered,  legs  ripped  off  by  shrapnel,  their 
jaws  in  bloody  shreds.  Dogs,  even  dogs,  ran  into 
hell  to  help  them;  but  the  sleek  old  grandmas 
tatted  and  tatted,  deaf  to  the  frantic  appeals  of 
onetime  physicians  and  laymen,  now  in  uniform, 
who  ages  before  had  selected  the  sites  for  receiv- 
ing hospitals  that  still  were  vacant  lots,  still  just 
blank  real  estate. 

"  The  hospitals  must  be  built  some  time," 
226 


ALL  BOUND  ROUND 

pleaded  the  officers  over  the  long-distance  tel- 
ephones from  far  cities.  "  Why  not  now?  Any 
moment  a  shipload  of  the  wounded  will  arrive ! " 

"Don't  speak  out  of  your  turn,  boys/' 
grandma  replied  sternly.  "We  shall  take  up 
the  matter  you  speak  of,  whatever  it  is,  when  the 
proper  time  comes."  What  was  promptness  in 
caring  for  the  lads  soon  to  come  back  to  the 
motherland,  bent  and  broken  forever,  compared 
with  preserving  intact  the  "  system  "  of  glorious 
pomposity  which  to  grandma  is  the  beginning 
and  end  of  things  as  they  were! 

No  mere  volume  could  begin  even  to  list  the 
hospitals,  the  building  materials,  the  ships,  shoes 
sealing-wax,  and  the  lives  that  red-tape  strangled 
in  the  first  weeks  of  the  war,  in  the  months  that 
followed,  and  is  continuing  to  strangle  at  the 
present  time.  That  new  major,  whose  necessary 
knowledge  of  forestry  had  been  so  lightly 
spurned  parted  from  bureaucracy,  I  know,  crest- 
fallen and  almost  ashamed  of  his  own  people, 

So  slow  to  start, 
So  fleet  of  foot — when  far  afield! 

But  as  he  went  out  the  door,  bureaucracy  sighed 
again  easily,  for  had  it  not  once  more  slipped 

227 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

the  rotting  red-tape  round  the  neck  of  common 
sense  and  sprung  the  trap?  and,  bravo!  the  an- 
cient strands  agaiu  had  withstood  the  strain. 

But  some  day  soon  —  halleloojah !  it 's  dawn- 
ing now  —  the  noose  and  scaffold  will  disappear ; 
and  Old  Man  Bureaucracy  will  be  awakened  at 
gray  dawn  and  learn,  as  he  puts  on  the  plain 
black  suit  laid  out  for  him,  that  the  right  leg  of 
the  trousers  has  been  slit  from  the  ankle  stitch- 
ing to  a  point  just  above  the  knee;  and  in  the 
half-light  of  the  breaking  day  they  will  lead  him, 
with  much  chantings,  through  a  little  doorway 
and  seat  him  in  a  plain  oaken  chair  equipped 
with  spiral  wires,  wet  sponges,  many  straps,  and 
a  dangling  headpiece  of  thick  leather.  And  then 
while  the  chantings  drone  on,  every  one  will  step 
back  a  safe  pace  to  the  surrounding  mats  of  gray 
rubber,  and  the  blue-white  juice  will  be  turned 
on  forever,  and  a  curl  of  smoke  will  arise  from 
his  short  hair.  I  have  seen  the  thing  done  in 
all  its  sickening  detail  in  the  death  house  at  Sing 
Sing  —  done  to  murderers  who  had  killed  only 
one  man,  who  as  a  rule  was  of  the  murderer's 
own  vile  kind.  And  before  many  more  have  been 
added  to  the  untold  number  of  magnificent  lads 
who  have  already  suffered,  died,  that  pomposity 

228 


ALL  BOUND  ROUND 

might  prevail,  the  thing  will  be  done  to  a  bu- 
reaucracy wherein  a  "  system  "  of  crass  stupidity 
and  wretched  stubbornness  still  continues  to  nur- 
ture these  murderers  of  young  American  man- 
hood. 


229 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   WAR   AND  THE   WHITE   HOUSE 

NOBODY  home  —  that  is  the  feel  in  the  air 
in  and  about  the  White  House  in  these  days 
of  war.  Gone  is  the  hurly-burly  of  the  Roosevelt 
days,  of  even  the  earlier  ante-bellum  days  of  the 
Wilson  regime;  gone  the  visiting  brides  and 
grooms  who  used  to  stroll  along  the  now-deserted 
winding  walks.  Whether  one  wanders  indoors 
among  the  semi-abandoned  executive  office  fur- 
nishings or  peers  from  afar  through  the  iron 
fence  at  the  graceful  white  facade,  the  feeling 
persists  that  perhaps  the  white  walls  house  a 
crackly  old  parchment  containing  the  Constitu- 
tion or  some  such  abstraction ;  but  otherwise  no- 
body home.  To-day  I  saw  a  secretary's  office  and 
the  President's  office  adjoining,  which  once  upon 
a  time  were  swarming  with  people,  but  are  now 
silent,  deserted,  a  vast  gloom.  The  very  police- 
men stationed  on  the  grounds  —  and  in  these  war 
days  there  are  more  than  half  a  hundred  of  them 

230 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

partly  concealed  in  and  round  the  White  House 

—  are  carefully  crated  in  lonely -looking  sentry- 
boxes  that  fit  as  tightly  across  the  shoulders  as 
a  thirty-five  dollar  Harlem  flat. 

To-night,  here  in  the  little  hotel  room  for 
which  the  wife  and  I  had  to  keep  up  a  drum-fire 
for  two  nights  and  a  day  to  get,  I  can't  help  but 
make  a  mental  contrast  of  things  I  have  seen  in 
and  around  the  White  House  to-day  with  some- 
thing else  that  happened  on  a  night  in  recent 
years  in  the  same  business  end  of  the  Executive 
Mansion,  or  what  was  once  the  business  end  of 
it.  The  incident  of  a  few  years  ago  which  comes 
to  mind  to-night  was  only  one  of  many  which 
once  made  the  large  secretarial  office  in  which 
Mr.  Tumulty  now  has  his  desk  hum  along  hap- 
pily day  by  day.  To-day  that  rectangular  office, 
and  particularly  the  circular  office  adjoining 
which  the  President  now  rarely  uses,  especially 
drove  home  the  feeling  that  one  had  sacrilegi- 
ously stepped  into  the  sanctified  cheerlessness  of 
the  horror  known  in  New  England  as  the  "  spare 
bedroom."  On  the  night  I  have  in  mind  —  it 
was  during  the  second  Roosevelt  administration 

—  a  group  of  the  Washington  correspondents  of 
New  York  newspapers,  their  work  finished  for 

231 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

the  night,  were  sitting  with  the  then  President's 
secretary  in  the  rectangular  office.  Most  of 
them  were  sitting  on  their  spines,  chairs  tilted 
back,  feet  cocked  ceilingward  into  the  clouds  of 
tobacco  smoke,  while  in  hushed  tones  —  it  was 
almost  midnight  —  they  talked  of  an  editorial 
which  that  morning  had  appeared  in  New  York's 
most  brilliantly  written  newspaper.  Dislike  of 
the  President  and  all  things  Rooseveltian  had 
driven  the  editor  man  to  the  extreme  of  suggest- 
ing that  the  high-priced  alienists  who  were  look- 
ing into  the  sanity  of  a  noted  murderer  then  on 
trial  in  New  York  might  better  be  giving  their 
time  and  talents  to  inquiring  into  the  sanity  of 
a  noted  personage  in  Washington. 

"  All  day  we  've  been  busy  keeping  that  news- 
paper out  of  the  President's  way,"  whispered  the 
secretary.  "  The  colonel  is  all  run  down  and 
jumpy  from  too  much  work,  and  if  he  ever  read 
that  editorial  he  'd  come  nearer  going  crazy  than 
even  that  editorial  writer  tries  to  make  believe 
he—" 

A  loud  laugh,  coming  from  a  corridor  leading 
to  the  interior  of  the  White  House,  interrupted 
the  secretary.  Hurried  steps  approached.  The 
door  was  pushed  open  with  a  rush,  and  into  the 

232 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

tobacco  smoke  of  the  secretary's  office  burst  an 
excited  personage  with  a  copy  of  the  New  York 
newspaper  in  his  hand.  It  was  the  President  of 
the  United  States.  Correspondents  and  the  sec- 
retary jumped  to  their  feet  respectfully. 

"  I  've  got  under  their  skins !  I  've  hurt  'em !  " 
cried  the  Colonel,  grinning  beatifically,  exult- 
ingly,  smacking  his  hand  on  the  newspaper. 
"  Look  at  this,  boys !  I  've  got  'em  on  the  mat, 
where  the  best  they  can  do  is  yell  that  I  'm  crazy. 
By  George !  that 's  bully ! "  And  a  President 
who  had  been  ordered  to  climb  under  the  quilts 
as  early  as  possible  every  night  during  those  days 
of  overworked  and  frazzled  nerves  sat  down  hap- 
pily amid  the  tobacco  clouds  and,  himself  quite 
one  of  the  boys,  chatted  with  Dick  and  Hank  and 
Sam  and  the  rest  of  the  lads  in  chummy  fashion. 
Doubtless  if  one  of  them  had  suggested  that  the 
President  jam  on  his  slouch-hat  and  walk  a  part 
of  the  way  home  with  the  correspondent  before 
turning  in,  he  would  have  done  it. 

Fancy  the  present  occupant  of  the  White 
House  bursting  in  upon  a  group  of  reporters  at 
midnight,  or  at  noon,  and  sitting  down  to  chat 
in  chummy  fashion!  Let  some  one  else  fancy 
it ;  I  can't.  There  was  only  one  day  —  March  5, 

233 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

1913  —  when,  so  far  as  can  be  recalled,  anything 
approaching  chummiuess  enlivened  the  offices  of 
the  present  President  and  his  secretary,  those 
rooms  which  in  recent  months  have  almost  gone 
into  the  silences.  On  that  March  day  Mr.  Wilson 
put  his  feet  for  the  first  time  under  the  Presiden- 
tial desk  which  now  he  rarely  sees.  Also  it  was 
the  first  day  on  which  Mr.  Bryan  attempted  to  be 
a  Secretary  of  State.  Visiting  delegations  came 
and  went  every  minute  on  the  minute,  each  group 
headed  by  a  beaming  charter  member  of  the 
Society  of  the  First  Man  to  Suggest  Woodrow 
Wilson's  Name  for  President.  The  office  of  the 
President  and  the  Tumulty  office  connected  with 
it  were  aglow  with  cut  flowers,  potted  plants,  and 
the  Hon.  J.  Ham  Lewis  arrayed  in  the  flossiest 
of  springtime  creations.  In  and  out  through  the 
doorway  that  connected  the  two  offices,  patter- 
ing and  chattering  and  beaming  like  a  small  boy 
with  a  brand-new  little  red  wagon  to  play  with, 
flitted  the  new  Secretary  of  State,  his  freshly-var- 
nished three-quart  high  hat  tilted  far  back  from 
his  beaded  brow,  so  that  just  a  fringe  of  his 
heavy-tragedian  locks  stuck  out  abaft  the  over- 
hang of  the  three-quart  tile.  As  the  newest  Sec- 
retary of  State  paused  at  times  long  enough  to 

234 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

gather  a  fresh  batch  of  the  delegations  about  him, 
one's  thoughts  persisted  in  going  back  to  boy- 
hood scenes  on  a  Saturday  night  in  the  old  home 
town  up-State;  the  old  horse-drawn  victoria 
standing  close  to  the  curb  at  the  corner  of  Main 
and  Washington  streets ;  a  smoky  torch-light  flar- 
ing above  the  driver's  seat;  cartons  containing 
dollar  bottles  of  Kickapoo  Indian  Sawga  Pain 
Exterminator  and  Hair  Restorer  piled  high 
about  a  gentleman  wearing  long  black  hair  and 
a  three-quart  polished  hat.  Step  closer,  men. 
First  a  little  song  and  banjo  music,  good  pee-pul, 
and  then,  men,  I  shull  demunstrate  the  marvel- 
ous pain-killing  propaties  of  this  great  remedy 
handed  down  to  us,  men,  by  the  wise  old  med- 
icune  men  of  the  great  Kickapoo  Indian  tribe ! 

There  was  a  human  touch,  back  on  that  far- 
away March  day  in  an  era  of  now  unbelievable 
peacefulness,  in  those  same  White  House  rooms, 
a  picnicy  atmosphere,  a  twittering  of  happy  ex- 
citement akin  to  commencement  day  in  a  boys' 
boarding-school.  There  was  a  festiveness  that 
made  even  the  sartorial  outbursts  of  the  Hon.  J. 
Ham  Lewis  seem  as  appropriate  as  the  golds  and 
brocades  on  a  circus  elephant.  One  even  caught 
a  glimpse  of  the  new  President's  very  coat-tails 

235 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

as  his  exuberant  Secretary  of  State  darted  in  and 
out  through  the  connecting  door  —  a  door  that 
seemed  to  give  the  mere  onlooker  a  sort  of  in- 
timate touch  with  greatness,  but  at  the  same  time 
suggested  walled  seclusion  which  held  the  pro- 
letariate a  million  miles  away  from  the  imme- 
diate person  of  the  pee-pul's  choice. 

But  now!  Ah,  now  is  something  else  again! 
To-day  as  I  approached  the  White  House  fence 
I  remembered  having  been  told  that  even  the 
grounds  were  closed  to  all  but  the  chosen. 
Had  n't  visiting  writing-folk  said  in  print  that 
no  one  can  get  into  government  buildings  in 
Washington  during  these  war-days,  least  of  all 
approach  the  White  House  doors,  unless  one 
owns  a  pass  decorated  with  the  owner's  photo- 
graph? I  remembered  having  read  such  articles, 
decorated  with  half-tones  showing  Government 
guards  holding  back  the  potential  visitors  while 
scrutinizing  the  photographs  on  the  passes. 
True,  only  the  day  before  I  had  walked  boldly 
into  the  north  entrance  of  the  State,  War,  and 
Navy  building  without  passes,  photographs,  in- 
fluence, letters,  or  even  personal  acquaintance- 
ship with  a  single  soul  inside  the  building,  and 
merely  by  asking  permission  to  see  a  soldier  in 

236 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

the  War  Department  whose  name  I  had  once 
heard  mentioned,  but  who  did  not  know  that  I  so 
much  as  existed,  I  had  been  permitted  to  wander, 
unaccompanied,  down  a  corridor  and  into  an  of- 
fice in  the  innermost  recesses  of  the  War  Depart- 
ment. And  half  an  hour  later,  in  quite  the  same 
care-free  manner,  I  had  penetrated  to  the  desks 
of  men  supervising  the  new  war  inventions  in  a 
little  building  across  the  way  that  houses  an  over- 
flow of  the  consulting  board  of  the  navy. 

Still,  the  feeling  was  ingrained  that  I  could  n't 
get  into  the  White  House  grounds,  not  to  men- 
tion the  executive  offices  of  the  White  House. 
Perhaps  the  guards,  however, —  thus  I  mused  to- 
day, or  almost  a  year  since  our  war  declaration, 
as  I  walked  toward  the  White  House, —  will  per- 
mit me  to  stand  near  enough  to  the  north  curb  of 
Pennsylvania  Avenue  to  holler  the  news  through 
a  megaphone  that  years  ago,  when  I  was  a  Jer- 
sey City  commuter,  I  had  become  well-enough 
acquainted  with  the  Hon.  Joseph  Patrick  Tu- 
multy to  walk  right  up  to  him  and  cry,  "  Well, 
bless  us  and  save  us,  if  here  ain't  Joe!"  And 
maybe  Joe  would  open  a  window  or  something 
and  wave  to  me,  or  even  go  so  far  as  to  step  out- 
side for  a  moment  and  - 

237 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

Heavens!  I  came  out  of  my  musings  with  a 
jerk,  and  found  myself  standing  inside  the  White 
House  grounds.  With  my  head  bowed  and 
dreaming,  I  had  become  so  concentrated  upon 
all  these  weighty  matters  that  thoughtlessly,  me- 
chanically, I  had  walked  through  the  wide-open 
west  gate  leading  to  the  President's  offices,  as 
wide  open  as  the  gates  on  the  north  side  were 
carefully  closed ;  and  I  had  pulled  myself  out  of 
my  state  of  coma  only  upon  finding  myself  stand- 
ing within  a  dozen  feet  of  the  door  leading  to  the 
executive  offices  in  the  west  wing  of  the  White 
House.  Horror  of  horrors !  a  lone,  but  brawny, 
Washington  cop  was  sleepily  propped  on  the 
driveway,  his  back  to  me  and  seemingly  in  the 
throes  of  gazing  in  fixed  fashion  into  some  large 
land  of  nothingness  lying  back  of  nowhere.  I 
had  come  leagues  inside  the  White  House 
grounds  without  realizing  it;  unconsciously  I 
had  passed  behind  the  broad  back  of  the  police- 
man and  now  was  closer  to  the  door  than  the 
officer  was.  Gosh!  Suppose  he  should  whirl 
about,  see  me,  and  fire  before  asking  questions ! 

"  Uh-uh-uh-uh  officer ! "  I  cried.  Oh,  I  was 
scared  all  right !  And  hurriedly  I  started  to  ad- 
dress him,  so  that  he  would  realize  that  it  was 

238 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

only  by  accident  that  I  had  got  so  close  to  a 
White  House  door.  "  Officer !  "  I  called  again, 
and  he  turned  round  lazily  and  regarded  me 
without  showing  any  slight  trace  of  absorbing  in- 
terest in  me  or  my  travels.  "  Uh  —  officer,  I  — 
I  wish  to  find  the  President's  offices.  Uh  — 
Secretary  Tumulty  —  he  — " 

"  Well,"  broke  in  the  bluecoat  in  withering 
tones,  "  there 's  the  door  in  front  of  you," —  as 
who  would  say:  "Yuh  got  yur  foot  on  the 
1  Welcome '  sign  on  the  doormat.  Whatcha  want 
me  to  do,  yuh  poor  fish ?  CARRY  yuh  in ?  " 

I  backed  away  scared,  and  instantly  brought 
myself  up  sharply  with  another  start.  I  was 
inside.  Seated  in  a  sort  of  reception-lobby  was 
a  middle-aged  person  who  was  quite  as  well  ac- 
quainted with  me  as  I  am  with  the  Akhund  of 
Swat.  But,  so  I  decided  the  instant  he  frowned 
upon  me,  he  '11  know  me  in  a  minute,  and  never 
will  he  permit  me  to  pass  beyond  him  into  the 
executive  offices;  for  the  secretary's  office  opens 
into  the  President's  office,  which  opens  into  a  cor- 
ridor, which  in  turn  leads  into  the  living-rooms 
of  the  White  House.  He  '11  list  my  pedigree  for 
three  generations  back ;  he  '11  make  me  unroll  my 
folded  newspaper  to  make  sure  that  it  does  n't 

239 


THE  WAE-WHIKL  IN  WASHINGTON 

contain  a  length  of  gas-pipe  plugged  at  each  end ; 
and  finally  he  '11  hold  me  head  downward  by  the 
heels  and  shake  me,  following  which  he  undoubt- 
edly will  kick  me  violently  back  into  whatever 
part  of  the  Pennsylvania  Avenue  asphalt  he 
thinks  I  should  be  decorating.  And  I  had  no 
pass,  no  card  of  introduction  to  save  me;  noth- 
ing. If  he  would  only  begin !  But  he  stared  si- 
lently. 

"  Er  —  I  —  I  should  like  to  see  Secretary 
Tumulty,  sir." 

"  He 's  out,  I  believe,"  remarked  the  gentleman 
of  the  iron-gray  hair.  "  Go  through  the  doorway 
back  there  and  ask  inside." 

Through  a  wide-arched  passageway  I  walked, 
and  came  upon  a  young  man  standing  in  a  small 
corridor.  He  knew  me  as  well  as  I  knew  him, 
which  was  not  at  all.  Again  I  asked  to  be  ad- 
mitted to  Secretary  Tumulty's  office. 

"  Second  door  to  your  left,"  directed  the  young 
man,  with  a  thumb-jerk.  "  I  think  he 's  out. 
Wait  in  his  office  till  he  comes  in,  if  you  care  to." 

Wherefore  within  a  few  seconds  I  found  that  I 
had  sauntered  without  interruption  from  the  as- 
phalt of  outdoors  into  the  veloured  and  carpeted 
and  leather-bound  elegancies,  "  rich,  but  not 

240 


'Second    door    to    your    left,"    directed    the    young    man    with    a 
thumb    jerk 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

gaudy,"  of  the  office  of  the  secretary  to  the  Presi- 
dent. There  I  sat,  alone  and  unguarded,  beside 
the  door  which  leads  into  the  President's  office, 
which  leads  into  a  corridor,  which  leads  into  the 
innermost  quarters  of  the  White  House.  Alone 
and  lonely.  Now,  on  my  visit  to  the  War  De- 
partment yesterday  I  at  least  wasn't  lonely  as 
I  sat  beside  the  vacant  desk  of  a  major  and 
waited  for  him  to  come  back  from  luncheon.  I 
had  found  three  other  strange  majors  seated  at 
three  of  the  four  desks  in  that  little  office,  each 
with  a  girl  stenographer  by  his  side.  And  after 
one  of  the  majors  had  looked  up  impersonally 
and  had  told  me  to  pull  up  a  chair  and  kill  time 
as  best  I  could  until  the  missing  major  returned, 
all  three  majors  had  resumed  their  work  of  dic- 
tating letters  in  conversational  tones  to  the  girl 
stenographers.  How  could  one  be  lonely  with 
three  unknown  gentlemen  unfolding  the  War 
Department's  correspondence  aloud  at  one's  el- 
bow in  a  room  the  size  of  a  hotel  bedroom? 

But  to-day  as  I  sat  in  Mr.  Tumulty's  tem- 
porarily deserted  office  the  only  entertainment  I 
could  think  of  was  to  sit  there  and  debate  with 
myself  how  many  lashes  of  the  knout  I  should 
give  to  young  Dave  Lawrence  and  the  rest  of  the 

241 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

Washington  writer  lads  who  had  given  me  the 
scare  of  my  life  with  their  articles  and  pictures 
illustrating  the  terrors  awaiting  a  stranger  like 
myself  who  would  dare  to  brave  the  suppositi- 
tious barbed-wire  entanglements  in  front  of 
Washington  governmental  entrances.  One  hun- 
dred lashes,  Ivan ;  twenty-five  for  the  little  scare 
of  yesterday  in  front  of  the  jolly  old  State,  War, 
and  Navy  building,  and  thrice  that  many  for  the 
greater  scare  at  the  White  House  to-day.  Likely 
as  not,  so  I  now  naturally  decided,  foreign  writ- 
ers had  been  misleading  all  of  us  about  similar 
conditions  abroad.  Likely  as  not,  if  a  total 
stranger,  visiting  Berlin  in  war-time,  wanted  to 
get  into  the  office  immediately  next  to  the  one 
containing  the  kaiser's  work-bench,  all  the 
stranger  would  have  to  do  would  be  to  walk  along 
Main  street,  Berlin,  until  the  kaiser's  street  num- 
ber was  reached  and  then  stroll  inside  without 
knocking,  as  in  Washington,  and  wander  round 
the  works  until  one  happened  upon  the  butler. 
Ah,  Looie,  you  're  growing  thin.  Is  the  boss 
home,  Looie?  He's  out?  Well,  I'll  just  me- 
ander on  toward  the  private  offices,  Looie,  and 
stick  round  there  till  the  kaiser  or  somebody 

242 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

shows  up.  By  the  way,  I  'm  an  American,  Looie. 
You  forgot  to  ask  me,  you  naughty,  naughty  but- 
ler, just  as  the  doorman  at  the  White  House  for- 
got to  ask  me  whether  or  not  I  was  a  German 
the  last  time  I  strolled  into  our  own  national  ex- 
ecutive offices  at  Washington.  Now  beat  it, 
Looie.  I  want  to  sit  here  alone  in  the  anteroom 
of  the  kaiser's  quarters,  because  if  he  should 
chance  along  I  want  to  see  him  alone  and  quick 
and  first !  Yes,  that 's  just  what  would  happen 
in  Berlin.  If  here,  why  not  there? 

In  my  loneliness  to-day  I  was  tempted  to  turn 
the  knob  an  arm's-length  away  and  kill  time  by 
puttering  round  the  President's  desk  in  the  office 
adjoining.  Or  perhaps  I  could  stroll  on  into  the 
corridor  leading  to  the  White  House  living- 
rooms  until  I  came  upon  some  good  snappy  book 
or  magazine  that  would  help  me  kill  time  till 
some  one  showed  up.  Before  I  left  I  did  go  into 
the  adjoining  office,  properly  escorted,  and  sat  at 
the  desk  and  gazed  upon  vacuity.  And  if  the 
flowers  and  highly  varnished  solemnities  of  the 
secretary's  office  suggested  the  death-chamber  of 
a  Past  Grand  Exalted  Ruler  of  the  Elks,  then 
the  deserted  room  next  to  it  surely  made  one  feel 

243 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

that  the  late  lamented  Elk  or  Eagle  recently  had 
been  removed  to  the  dear  old  clubhouse  for  the 
final  obsequies. 

Finally  I  heard  a  human  voice,  two  of  them. 
I  could  n't  see  the  humans,  and  they  could  n't  see 
me,  but  I  could  hear  their  type-writers  begin  to 
click  and,  as  they  chatted  across  their  desks  or 
answered  the  frequent  ringing  of  a  telephone  bell, 
the  sound  of  their  voices  came  to  me  from  the 
recesses  of  an  arched  passage  out  in  the  general 
direction  of  the  street  door  by  which  I  had  en- 
tered. They  seemed  to  have  no  fear  that  the 
President  would  wander  at  any  moment  from  the 
seclusion  of  his  living-rooms  into  his  own  office 
end  of  the  White  House;  no  thought  that  he 
would  burst  in  among  them  excitedly,  newspaper 
in  hand,  and  boom  dee-lightedly,  "  By  George ! 
boys,  here 's  something  bully !  "  The  two  unseen 
clerks  just  went  on  clicking  and  telephoning ;  and 
from  the  nature  of  the  telephone  talks  it  was 
evident  that  about  every  one  in  Washington  and 
the  world  was  trying  to  "  get  into  touch  "  with 
one  or  another  of  the  President's  official  family, 
chiefly  with  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  On  a 
conservative  guess,  nine  out  of  every  ten  persons 
who  call  up  Secretary  Tumulty's  office  are  sure 

244 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

that  tlie  success  of  the  war  hangs  largely  upon 
the  speed  with  which  they  are  "  put  in  touch  " 
with  Secretary  McAdoo.  It  is  a  notable  fact 
that  within  ten  days  after  Mr.  McAdoo  had  been 
placed  in  charge  of  the  country's  railways  his 
mail  contained  about  ten  thousand  "  personal " 
letters,  half  of  them  telling  him  how  to  run  his 
job  and  the  other  half  asking  permission,  for  a 
consideration,  to  share  his  job  with  him. 

But  if  distant  clicks  and  telephone  bells  were 
the  only  indications  of  activity  round  the  White 
House,  it  always  should  be  borne  in  mind  that 
an  appalling  amount  of  work  had  been  done 
there  since  morning,  especially  by  the  distin- 
guished head  of  the  house  himself.  Hours  earlier 
he  had  taken  up  the  systemized  tasks  which  are 
the  penalty  of  holding  down  so  colossal  a  job  as 
the  Presidency  of  the  greatest  country  fighting, 
or  finally  getting  ready  to  fight,  in  the  world's 
mightiest  war.  For  with  the  possible  exception 
of  the  Kev.  Billy  Sunday,  not  a  man  in  Washing- 
ton to-day,  yesterday,  every  day,  works  harder  to 
earn  the  little  yellow  pay-envelop  than  the  Hon. 
Woodrow  Wilson. 

Take  yesterday  as  an  example,  or  go  back  to 
the  night  before  last.  After  a  day  as  busy  as  all 

245 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

the  rest  he  had  dined  at  seven,  and  then,  in  the 
seclusion  of  his  study  in  the  heart  of  the  White 
House,  he  had  labored  until  almost  midnight 
over  the  final  draft  of  a  momentous  message 
wherein  were  stated  the  only  possible  peace 
terms  which  America  would  consider.  In  that 
secluded  study  he  keeps,  especially  since  his  vir- 
tual abandonment  of  the  office  which  he  and  his 
predecessors  used  to  use,  his  books,  papers,  and 
other  printed  and  written  matter  which  he  must 
have  within  arm's-length.  And  as  he  worked  on 
and  on  in  his  secluded  exclusiveness  two  nights 
ago,  not  even  the  wisest  newspaper  correspond- 
ent in  Washington,  certainly  no  member  of 
Congress,  had  any  vague  inkling  that  the  next 
day  he  would  appear  suddenly  at  the  Capitol  and 
read  his  epoch-making  message. 

Then  toward  midnight  he  had  decided  to  call 
it  a  day  and  begin  preparations  to  retire.  At 
7:15  o'clock  yesterday  morning  he  arose  and 
breakfasted.  He  spent  a  few  moments  over  his 
message  again,  and  next,  before  starting  off  on 
his  regular  morning  trip  to  a  golf-course  for  a 
bit  of  fresh  air,  he  telephoned  to  Secretary 
Tumulty's  house  and  broke  the  unexpected 
news  that  he  would  address  a  joint  session  in 

246 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

the  House  at  midday.  Would  Mr.  Tumulty 
kindly  make  arrangements  at  once  for  the 
joint  session?  Mr.  Tumulty  would,  pulling 
on  his  helmet,  rubber  coat,  and  boots,  and  slid- 
ing down  the  brass  pole  to  get  at  the  job  quickly. 
Whereupon  the  President  got  into  his  hat  and 
overcoat.  In  the  driveway  was  his  White  House 
car,  like  any  other  town  car  of  elegance  except 
for  the  ornate  Federal  shield,  tea-cup-sized,  on 
the  doors.  And  then,  with  two  fast-flying  mo- 
torcycle policemen  setting  the  pace  and  a  whole 
barrel  of  Secret  Service  men  chugging  along  be- 
hind, the  President  was  off  for  his  bit  of  morning 
golf  out  near  the  district-line. 

Within  two  hours,  as  always,  he  was  back  in 
the  White  House,  had  taken  his  regular  after- 
golf  bath,  and  had  put  aside  his  golf -clothes  for 
the  well-cut,  carefully  pressed  raiment,  so  far 
removed  from  the  regulation  baggy  trousers 
which  college  professors  seem  to  think  they  are 
sentenced  to  wear  that  the  President  Wilson  of 
the  knife-edge  trousers  probably  never  would 
recognize  the  Professor  Wilson  who  used  to  wear 
mere  pants.  And  now,  not  quite  like  the  Hon. 
J.  Ham  Lewis  or  the  lilies  of  the  field,  but  a 
personage  of  unostentatious  elegance,  there  is  a 

247 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

summons  for  a  secretary,  stenographer,  for  any 
one  needed  from  an  office  staff  which,  through 
long  years  of  experience  has  attained  an  effi- 
ciency to  be  marveled  at;  and,  still  secluded  in 
the  heart,  of  the  White  House  living-quarters,  he 
starts  in  to  tackle  his  correspondence,  an  amaz- 
ing part  of  which  requires  his  personal  attention. 
Letter-writing  of  importance  often  takes  up  his 
time  until  the  luncheon  hour.  Yesterday,  how- 
ever, with  a  portentous  message  to  Congress  to 
be  read  at  noon,  he  dictated  somewhat  earlier  the 
last  letter  beginning  with  the  formula,  "  May  I 
not  thank  you  for  your  recent  letter  and  suggest 
that,"  etc.  Again  the  two  speedy  motorcycle 
cops,  the  car,  and  the  barrel  of  Secret  Service 
men  began  to  chug  eastward,  and  within  a  few 
minutes  the  President  was  facing  an  expectant 
Congress. 

"  What 's  he  going  to  talk  about,  Senator?  " 

"  Search  me !  Never  heard  he  was  here  till  a 
minute  ago." 

"  Oh,  I  say,  Hills,  you  newspaper  lads  know 
everything.  What 's  the  President  got  on  his 
chest?" 

"  How  'd  I  know,  Congressman?  I  just  raced 
down  here  from  our  news  bureau  when  I  got  the 

248 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

flash  over  the  telephone  that  the  Big  Chief  was 
headed  this  way.  You  Democrats  on  the  ad- 
ministration side  of  the  House  ought  to  know 
something  about  it.  C'm  on,  spill  the  news." 

"  Nope.  Sure  as  your  name  is  Larry  Hills, 
not  a  soul  of  us  heard  he  was  coming  till  Joe 
Tumulty  began  to  get  busy  this  morning.  Gol- 
lies !  can  you  beat  it !  " 

And  that  "  Gollies !  "  which  the  administration 
Representative  ridded  himself  of  yesterday  noon 
as  he  and  the  newspaper  man  raced  along  a  Capi- 
tol corridor  toward  the  House  side  was  not  near 
so  vehement  as  a  lot  of  other  exclamations  which 
Senators  and  Representatives,  from  the  Presi- 
dent's political  camp  as  well  as  "  the  opposition  " 
sides  of  the  House  and  Senate,  let  loose  almost 
any  time  that  the  matter  of  the  President's  ex- 
clusive secludedness  enters  into  congressional 
conversations.  The  innovation  of  a  President 
who  rarely,  almost  never,  takes  individual  mem- 
bers of  Congress  into  his  confidences  causes  pa- 
thetic bleatings  on  the  part  of  his  congressional 
friends  and  admirers  and  positive  brain-storms 
on  the  other  side  of  the  middle  aisle.  As  a  far- 
thest Western  representative, —  who  loomed 
large  in  the  exciting  days  of  the  war  declaration, 

249 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

put  it  to  me  months  after  we  had  entered  the 
war :  "  He  is  the  first  President  in  my  experi- 
ence who  never  lets  his  extra  right  hand,  which 
is  Congress,  know  what  his  private  right  or  left 
hand  is  doing.  He  never  talks  things  over,  as 
his  predecessors  did,  even  big  things,  with  a  Mem- 
ber before  he  springs  them  on  us ;  never  confers ; 
never  paves  the  way.  He  alone  of  all  the  Presi- 
dents brings  or  sends  us  wholly  unexpected  mes- 
sages and  measures,  and  then  expects  us  to  go 
ahead  and  act  upon  them  without  our  having  the 
slightest  notion  of  how  his  mind  is  working  on  a 
given  measure.  Nobody  under  heaven  but  him- 
self has  any  notion,  so  far  as  we  know,  certainly 
nobody  under  the  dome  of  the  Capitol.  He  has 
no  confidants,  no  intimates ;  so  there 's  no  one 
we  can  go  to  in  order  to  get  into  working  touch 
with  him,  not  even  a  third  party." 

There  were  tears  in  the  voice  of  the  Congress- 
man. Even  louder  are  the  private  and  person- 
ally conducted  cries  of  anguish  daily  coming 
from  congressional  lungs,  the  owners  of  which 
had  grown  accustomed,  sometimes  throughout  a 
generation  of  Washington  sessions,  to  seeking 
the  White  House,  or  being  sought  by  it,  with 
much  frequency ;  to  sit  there  intimately  for  half 

250 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

an  hour,  sometimes  longer,  in  close-up  conversa- 
tion with  the  particular  Great  White  Father  that 
graced  the  Executive  Mansion  during  a  given 
term.  But  nowadays  Congressmen,  high  and 
low,  have  the  feeling  that  if  any  particularly 
important  piece  of  statesmanship  is  going  to  be 
cooked,  a  certain  Personage  will  attend  to  the 
cooking  unaided  and  then  serve  the  whole  dish 
himself.  Hence  pathetic  bleats. 

Not  that  Senators  or  Representatives  never  get 
indoors  at  the  White  House  to  see  the  President 
in  these  days.  If  one  of  them  is  honored  with 
an  audience,  the  preliminary  arrangements  are 
made  quickly,  even  to  notifying  a  policeman  at  a 
northern  gate  now  closed  to  the  general  public 
that  Senator  Sidewhiskers  will  arrive  at  that 
gate  at  a  given  hour.  But  as  a  rule  such  audi- 
ences come  after  the  message  or  measure  has 
been  all  cooked  and  served.  Yesterday,  for  in- 
stance, after  the  President  had  read  his  notable 
message  to  Congress  and  had  lunched  between 
one  and  two  o'clock  with  his  family,  callers  be- 
gan to  storm  that  north  gate  from  a  few  minutes 
after  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  until,,  with  the 
exception  of  time  taken  out  for  dinner,  eleven 
o'clock  last  night.  Foreign  Commissioners,  Sen- 

251 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

ators,  Representatives,  members  of  his  official 
family,  in  and  out  they  passed  steadily  in  an  ef- 
fort to  unfold  to  the  President  views  and  ideas 
that  had  come  to  them  after  the  President,  had 
exploded  his  message  in  the  joint  session.  After, 
always  after.  And  he  saw  all  whom  it  was  phy- 
sically possible  to  see,  but  they  did  n't  sit  and 
chin  and  smoke  for  an  hour,  half  an  hour,  even 
for  fifteen  minutes,  as  in  the  good  old  days  that 
were.  The  President  was  affability  itself  as  he 
did  most  of  the  necessary  talking,  briefly,  to  the 
point.  Then  a  hand-shake,  one  of  those  hand- 
shakes that  passes  you  onward,  with  the  extreme 
of  cordiality,  toward  the  top  of  the  greased  chute 
that  leads  to  the  Open  Air  Down  And  Out  Club. 

"  We  *ve  come  down  here,"  remarked  David 
Belasco,  proudly,  to  a  Senator  friend  he  met  on 
the  avenue,  "  representing  the  theatrical  man- 
agers. We  're  to  go  to  the  White  House  this 
afternoon  for  five  minutes." 

"  Five  minutes ! ''  cried  the  Senator.  "  What 
in  thunder  are  you  going  to  do  with  the  other 
four  minutes? "  It  is  on  record  that  Messrs. 
Belasco,  Marc  Klaw,  George  Cohan,  and  the  rest 
of  that  delegation  did  n't  know  what  to  do  with 
at  least  a  part  of  the  four  minutes.  Down  to 

252 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

Washington  they  had  come  all  primed  up  with 
speeches  in  which  they  were  to  show  the  Presi- 
dent that  the  great  war  revenue  from  the  tax 
on  theater-tickets  and  the  splendid  part  the  stage 
had  played  in  raising  funds  for  war-relief  work 
entitled  the  managers  at  least  to  ask  that  they 
might  be  permitted  to  keep  their  show  shops  open 
on  the  ten  coalless  Garfield  Mondays  then  con- 
templated. But  those  speeches  never  wrere  de- 
livered. The  President  received  the  managers 
with  his  usual  cordiality,  shook  hands,  said  a  few 
appropriate  sentences  in  appreciation  of  the 
stage  profession's  wrork  along  war-relief  lines; 
then  another  hand-shake,  the  greased  chute,  and 
the  managers  came  back  to  earth  in  the  great  out- 
doors,—  it  was  round  zero  that  day,  too,  in  Wash- 
ington,—  remembering  suddenly  as  they  came 
out  of  their  daze  that  not  once  had  they  thought 
to  step  into  the  spot-light  and  unlimber  the  mod- 
ulated and  sounding  phrases  carefully  rehearsed 
during  their  all-night  run  from  Manhattan  to 
the  capital. 

This  morning  there  was  not  even  a  hand-shake 
indoors  round  the  White  House;  just  the  clock- 
work regime  of  rising  at  seven,  or  seven-fifteen 
at  the  latest,  breakfast,  then  whatever  golf  can 

253 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

be  jammed  inside  of  two  hours,  which  also  must 
include  the  run  to  the  golf-course  and  back,  the 
bath,  and  dressing  which  follows.  And  from 
that  time  until  luncheon  was  served  there  was 
the  attack  upon  the  correspondence  that  reaches 
to  world  without  end.  Each  day  on  his  sanctum 
desk,  and  on  the  desk  next  to  Mr.  Tumulty's  of- 
fice in  case  he  should  accidentally  wander  so  far 
afield,  the  President  will  find  a  "  reminder  "  of 
the  different  engagements  and  other  work  cut 
out  for  him  that  day.  Take  the  list  as  prepared 
for  to-day,  type-written  on  a  stiffish  white  card 
about  the  size  of  this  page,  with  the  leg- 
end, "  THE  PRESIDENT'S  ENGAGEMENTS," 
printed,  not  engraved  or  embossed,  but  in  simple 
type  printed  in  dark-blue  ink  at  the  top  of  the 
card  thus: 


12.00  noon    THE  WHITE  HOUSE : 

The  Governor  General  of  Canada 
LUNCHEON: 

The  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Devonshire 
3.00  p.  m.     THE  WHITE  HOUSE  : 
Senator  Lewis 
254 


THE  WAE  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

3.30  p.  m.     THE  WHITE  HOUSE : 
Mr.  Hoover 

4.00  p.  m.     THE  WHITE  HOUSE  : 

The  Attorney  General,  The  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  and  Senator  Swanson 

One  should  not  get  the  notion  from  the  day's 
engagements  as  listed  above  that  the  Governor- 
General  of  Canada  and  his  duchess,  after  enter- 
ing the  White  House  at  noon,  sat  round  and 
chatted  with  the  President  until  luncheon  was 
served  at  one  o'clock.  Not  in  this  administra- 
tion of  the  party  of  Andy  Jackson  and  Jefferson- 
ian  simplicity !  It  is  a  social  law  nowadays  that 
if  one  is  invited  to  the  White  House  for  luncheon 
the  honored  big  wig  is  first  received  in  audience 
and  then  goes  away  from  there  for  a  brief  while ; 
turns  round  and  walks  right  out  and  conies 
right  back  again  half  an  hour  or  so  later  for  the 
luncheon  part  of  the  ceremonial. 

Also,  in  running  over  the  list  of  the  President's 
engagements  to-day,  it  should  not  be  forgotten 
that  the  Senator  who  did  get  fully  half  an  hour  of 
audience,  from  three  to  three-thirty  o'clock,  had 
all  that  time  in  the  White  House  as  his  very  own 
because  Senator  Lewis  is  the  administration's 
representative  in  the  Senate.  Nor  should  an- 

255 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

other  engagement,  scribbled  hastily  across  the 
bottom  of  one  of  the  President's  engagement 
cards  which  lies  before  me  as  I  write,  be  over- 
looked. "  5.00  P.  M.  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  :  De- 
legation of  Western  Congressmen."  They  also 
had  a  few  minutes  in  the  presence,  but  their  en- 
gagement evidently  was  a  last-minute  one,  which 
never  had  arisen  to  the  dignity  of  being  carefully 
typed  in  advance  with  the  other  items  listed. 

All  day  every  day  the  President  manages  to 
sandwich  in  between  the  steady  run  of  appoint- 
ments more  and  more  dictation  of  correspond- 
ence. Steadily  throughout  the  day  also  the  sec- 
retary to  the  President,  who  in  the  earlier  Wil- 
son days  used  to  dart  in  and  out  of  the  circular 
private  office  adjoining  the  secretarial  desk  to 
confer  with  the  President  verbally,  now  is  con- 
stantly dictating  numberless  notes  and  sugges- 
tions and  shooting  them  into  the  White  House 
recesses  at  intervals  in  the  hope  that  the  Presi- 
dent will  find  in  the  brief  notes  some  idea  of  in- 
terest, perhaps  of  real  use.  "  Dear  Governor." 
so  the  Tumulty  notes  begin  early  in  the  forenoon 
and  continue  until  late.  And  the  marginal  nota- 
tions, in  the  President's  handwriting,  which  deco- 
rate the  notes  when  they  come  back  to  the 

256 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

secretary's  office  again  show  that  the  President 
finds  time  somehow  to  read  and  comment  upon 
all  the  suggestions  that  come  to  him  from  Mr. 
Tumulty  and  his  assistants.  Here  is  an  office 
staff  which  has  reason  to  feel  sure,  unlike  the 
bleating  Congressmen,  that  it  knows  "  how  his 
mind  is  working  on  a  given  measure."  These 
notes  from  Mr.  Tumulty  are  now  the  President's 
main  bridge,  his  only  bridge,  that  spans  the  vast 
expanse  which  in  late  days  separates  him  from 
the  public  thought  on  a  given  measure.  Now  the 
secretarial  office  is  the  sieve,  the  chief  separator, 
through  which  are  sifted  the  thoughts  or  the  per- 
sonalities which  should  or  should  not  be  pre- 
sented to  the  President.  Newspaper  clippings, 
editorials,  sometimes  sheaves  of  editorials  on  a 
given  subject,  are  often  included  in  the  notes 
which  the  secretary  sends  farther  indoors  to  his 
secluded  chief.  For  even  now  in  his  unpre- 
cedented seclusion  the  chief  presents  the  paradox 
of  a  President  who,  perhaps  more  than  any  of 
his  predecessors,  believes  a  leader  should  follow 
the  thought  of  the  crowd,  and  this  regardless  of 
the  fact  that  a  big  part  of  that  crowd  still  holds 
to  the  old-fashioned  theory  that  the  only  reason 
one  person  out  of  the  hundred  million  receives  at 

257 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

the  polls  their  permission  to  enter  the  White 
House  is  that  their  choice  is  intellectually  head 
and  shoulders  over  the  half-baked,  scatter- 
brained "  voice  of  the  people  " ;  therefore  is  ex- 
pected to  lead  from  the  front  rank,  not  the  rear. 
Inasmuch  as  popular  music  is  bad  music,  popu- 
lar painting  bad  painting,  popular  — 

But  to  return  to  the  "  delegation  of  Western 
Congressmen."  When  they  had  been  hand- 
shaken  out  of  the  presence  this  evening  the 
President  again  called  it  a  day  and  began  to  pre- 
pare for  dinner.  After  dining  he  decided,  as 
frequently  happens,  to  "  take  a  night  off."  At 
least  once,  sometimes  twice,  a  week  he  goes  to 
the  theater,  preferably  to  a  vaudeville  or  a 
"  musical  comedy  "  performance ;  or  he  may  de- 
vote the  evening  to  reading  until  bedtime.  And 
again  and  again  one  notes  on  his  list  of  daily 
engagements  advance  notices  to  be  ready  at  a 
given  minute  to  touch  a  button  in  the  White 
House  and  thereby  illuminate  the  Main  Building 
at  the  opening  of  the  National  Crazy  Quilt  Ex- 
position in  far  off  What  Cheer,  Iowa,  or  light 
up  the  conference-hall  where  the  Amalgamated 
Pretzel  Varnishers'  Union  or  the  Industrial  As- 
sociation of  Carriage  Wheel  and  Zebra  Stripers' 

258 


THE  WAK  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

Unions  of  America  are  in  annual  convention  at 
Blueduck,  Illinois.  He  plays  golf  or  goes  to 
ball-games  not  so  much  as  an  enthusiastic  fan, 
but  as  a  part  of  a  calculated,  systematized  pro- 
gram to  get  fresh  air  into  his  lungs  and  cobwebs 
from  his  brain ;  but  he  goes  to  the  theater  be- 
cause he  likes  the  stage  and  all  things  pertaining 
to  it.  Even  in  these  crowded  days  Eaymond 
Hitchcock,  DeWolf  Hopper,  Frank  Tinney,  any 
noted  Thespian,  can  get  within  hand-shaking  dis- 
tance (they've  done  so)  and  a  two  minute  chat 
with  far  greater  ease  than  the  average  member  of 
Congress  can. 

But  the  promiscuous  hand-shaking  in  the 
White  House  now  is  a  memory.  The  New 
Year's  receptions,  stupid  relics  of  a  capital  and 
nation  younger  and  smaller,  and  therefore  more 
pliable,  have  been  dispensed  with,  chiefly  because 
they  were  boresome  functions  that  kept  the 
President  standing  for  three  hours  of  countless 
hand-shakes  when  his  hand  and  mind  might  bet- 
ter be  given  to  the  stupendous  tasks  which  con- 
front a  chief  executive  in  a  world  war.  He 
"  does  n't  want  solemnity  these  days,  but  he  does 
want  efficiency,"  as  it  was  put  to  me  to-day  at  the 
White  House.  Only  on  the  "cabinet  days," 

259 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

those  Tuesday  and  Friday  afternoons  each  week 
which  are  now  about  the  only  times  he  sees  what 
officially  is  still  his  office,  is  there  any  of  the  off- 
hand greetings.  On  those  two  afternoons  the 
President  comes  from  his  study  far  inside  the 
White  House  about  two-fifteen  o'clock.  Then, 
and  only  then,  for  fifteen  minutes  there  is  a 
semblance  of  the  old-time  ease  of  access  to  his 
desk.  Almost  any  one  with  or  without  a  reason 
for  his  greeting  —  usually  with  no  better  reason 
than  a  chance  "to  shake  hands  with  the  Presi- 
dent " —  may  be  escorted  from  Secretary  Tu- 
multy's office  to  the  President  in  the  adjoining 
room  —  any  one,  that  is,  who  is  worthy  and  is 
known  to  his  secretary  or  official  family.  But 
promptly  at  2 :30  o'clock  the  little  party  comes 
to  an  end ;  the  last  of  the  hand-shakers  is  with- 
drawn to  outer  darkness,  and  the  President  and 
his  cabinet  get  down  to  business,  and  stick  to  it 
until  about  5 :45  o'clock  that  evening. 

Saturdays  are  his  free  days,  his  "  day  out." 
He  plays  golf  on  Saturday  mornings,  often  mo- 
tors on  Saturday  afternoons,  and  rests  on  Sat- 
urday night.  His  Sundays  are  devoted  to  at- 
tending religious  services  and  then  to  a  vast 
amount  of  reading,  the  reading  being  often  a 

260 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

matter  of  work  in  a  way,  inasmuch  as  a  great 
deal  of  the  Sunday  reading  these  days  is  devoted 
to  poring  over  despatches,  cable  messages,  and 
other  papers  of  an  official  or  semi-official  nature. 
Thus  it  goes  until  late  at  night.  By  midnight, 
or  shortly  before,  the  White  House  is  a  ghost  of 
a  mansion,  dark  and  silent,  save  for  the  measured 
tread  of  soldier  guards  who  in  war-time  take  the 
place  of  the  policemen  guards  at  nightfall,  and 
with  loaded  rifles  on  shoulders  slowly  pace  back 
and  forth  until  the  dawn  of  a  new  day. 

To-day  was  not  one  of  the  cabinet  days;  if  it 
had  been,  I  might  have  seen  the  President's  of- 
fice in  something  of  its  old  mood  of  human  ac- 
tivity. I  did  not  want  to  wander  into  that  cir- 
cular office  and  so  on  into  the  White  House 
without  first  waiting  until  somebody  or  other 
came  along  who  would  give  me  permission.  Had 
I  done  so,  who  knows  but  in  the  corridors  I 
might  have  bumped  into  one  of  the  Major  Ray- 
mond Pullman's  fifty-eight  varieties  of  White 
House  cops,  some  of  whom  stroll  indoors  all  har- 
nessed up  in  swagger  and  statesmanlike  morning- 
coats  and  creased  trousers,  camouflaged  sartori- 
ally  and  quite  as  free  from  that  air  of  having 
been  suddenly  all  dressed  up  as  one  of  those 

261 


THE  WAK-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

vaudeville  acrobats  who  "  open  the  bill  "  by  com- 
ing upon  the  stage  in  evening  clothes,  his  hair 
nicely  oiled,  before  he  pulls  off  everything  and 
stands  revealed  in  pink  tights  and  spangles. 
One  never,  never  would  mistake  any  of  the  ma- 
jor's ornate  indoor  cops  for  cops;  one  might 
fancy,  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  that  one  had 
stumbled  upon  an  Italian  barber  from  the  South 
Side  of  Chicago  all  garbed  up  on  his  bridal  day, 
but  otherwise  Major  Pullman's  gorgeous  guard- 
ians would  have  an  intruder  completely  fooled. 

Fortunately,  I  didn't  have  to  spend  all  my 
afternoon  in  solitude.  By  bits  strange  folk 
wandered  into  Secretary  Tumulty's  office,  per- 
haps a  dozen  in  all,  and  stood  waiting  near  the 
open  fireplace  or  sat  round  the  room  expectantly. 
Then  the  secretary  to  the  President  waded 
through  whatever  business  had  been  keeping  him 
outdoors  and  entered.  For  many  minutes  there- 
after it  was  a  joy  to  sit  on  the  side  lines  and 
watch  the  deftness,  the  easy  certainty,  with 
which  young  Mr.  Tumulty  handled  the  sieve  and 
did  the  sifting.  A  clear-brained,  alert,  and  very 
efficient  little  diplomatic  embassy  is  the  Hon. 
Joseph  Patrick  Tumulty  all  by  himself. 

And  then  came  a  greatest  moment,  never  to  be 
262 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

forgotten,  which  showed  conclusively  that  the 
inner  corridor  which  led  from  the  secretary's  of- 
fice into  the  innermost  private  sanctum  sanc- 
torum of  the  President  also  led  from  that  far 
study  out  to  the  very  room  in  which  I  was  sit- 
ting. Steps  were  heard  approaching  from  those 
inner  recesses,  footfalls  of  a  dignity  and  a 
strength  of  tread  befitting  a  President  of  these 
United  States  of  America.  Conversation  in  the 
secretary's  office  came  to  an  abrupt  halt.  One 
almost  heard  the  instant  silence  which  fell  upon 
an  awestruck  room  as  the  steps  came  near  and 
nearer.  And  then  the  door  leading  back  to  the 
President's  quarters  opened  portentously,  and 
every  one  stood  up  as  the  door  formed  a  frame 
for  the  graceful  physique  standing  there  in  the 
well-made  morning-coat,  trousers  pressed  to 
knife-edge  nicety.  And  there  he  stood,  the  Mag- 
nificent, the  Honorable  J.  Ham  Lewis,  fresh 
from  his  whole  half-hour  in  the  presence.  Mauve 
were  his  spats,  mauve  of  the  evening  sky  was 
his  cravat,  pearl  and  mauve  the  kerchief  that 
drooped  with  care-free  care  from  an  upper  pocket 
of  a  coat  as  misty  gray  as  a  rare  Whistler  pic- 
ture, as  free  from  seams  or  wrinkles  as  the  silken 
cheek  of  a  sleeping  babe.  And  the  one-time  Pink 

263 


THE  WAK-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

Aurora  Borealis,  the  Pride  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  was  the  Pink  Aurora  Borealis  no  more: 
side-whiskers  which  were  a  nation's  red  badge 
of  glory  and  pride  back  in  the  days  when  they 
glowed  as  ardently  as  a  dawning  day  in  farthest 
Ind,  now  had  darkened  to  a  rich  khaki  shade  in 
keeping  with  the  soldierly  spirit  of  these  martial 
days. 

"  Gentlemen,"  he  said  graciously,  bowed,  and 
passed  his  homeward  way  perhaps  forever  from 
our  sight.  Tears  of  emotion  sprang  to  my  eyes, 
and  the  beautiful  figure  which  a  great  poet  had 
used  to  express  his  own  emotions  at  the  passing 
onward  of  the  lovely  Evangeline  involuntarily 
came  to  my  lips. 

Homeward  serenely  she  walked  with  God's  benedic- 
tion upon  her. 

When  she  had  passed,  it  seemed  like  the  ceasing  of 
exquisite  music. 

My  day  had  not  been  in  vain. 


264 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   MUTUAL   ADMIRATION   CLUB 


,  do  you  know  something?  " 
The  wife  was  speaking.  I  'm  afraid  I 
was  n't  paying  strict  attention.  A  moment  be- 
fore I  had  unlocked  the  door  of  our  hotel-room 
closet  in  which  I  had  had  secreted  since  our  ar- 
rival in  Washington  the  little  old  black  traveling- 
bag  that  railway-station  redcaps  had  tried  to 
grab  from  my  hand  once  they  had  heard  the 
glassy  clink  of  the  contents.  I  did  not  answer 
the  wife  promptly,  my  thoughts  being  centered 
ruefully  upon  the  extreme  emptiness  of  that  little 
black  bag,  which  now  yawned  vacantly  open  in 
my  hand.  Marvelous  had  been  the  way  that  the 
news  of  the  arrival  of  the  little  bag  in  Washing- 
ton had  spread  among  my  old  friends  and  new 
acquaintances  throughout  the  capital.  Day  in 
and  day  out  they  had  honored  me  with  visits, 
their  eyes  glued  upon  that  closet  door.  And  the 
key  to  the  door,  which  had  worked  stiffly  when  we 

265 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

first  came  to  the  city,  now  slid  the  bolt  back  with 
the  noiseless  ease  of  an  automobile  engine  headed 
down-grade  on  its  three-thousandth  mile. 

"  Steve,  I  'm  talking  to  you !  Do  you  know 
what  I  think?  " 

"  No,  Mr.  Bones.     What  do  you  think?  " 

"  Well,  I  was  just  thinking  this :  after  looking 
this  town  over  for  a  spell  I  was  just  thinking 
how  deplorable  it  is  that  the  best  that  can  be 
said  of  the  dear  old  line  which  we  all  love  to 
spout  so  solemnly,  '  The  voice  of  the  people  is 
the  voice  of  God,'  is  that  it  is  one  of  the  worst 
blasphemies  ever  uttered.  I  don't  think  '  the 
pee-pul '  ever  in  history  were  — " 

"  Now  wait  a  minute,  old  girl/'  I  interrupted, 
snapping  the  bag  and  chucking  it  down  on  the 
closet  floor.  "  Right  in  our  own  history,  for  in- 
stance, it  was  the  people,  was  n't  it,  that  first 
rose  against  the  fool  policies  of  England  toward 
the  colonies  and  wrote  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence? It  was  the  people  who  carried  the 
American  Revolution  to  a  successful  conclusion, 
*  the  common  pee-pul,'  and  then  struck  off  a 
Constitution  that  ?s  never  cracked  under  the 
strain,  wasn't  it?  And  again  in  1812  it  was 
the  people  who — ' 

266 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

"  Oh  hush,  Steve !  *  The  people '  never  did  any 
of  these  things.  They  did  resent  being  taxed 
without  representation,  even  to  the  point  of 
armed  resistance,  and  they  were  quite  right  in 
doing  so.  More  power  to  their  elbows.  But  it 
was  the  trained  thought  of  a  little  handful  of 
leaders,  their  Ben  Franklins  and  Washingtons 
and  Jeffersons  and  the  like,  men  who  were  what 
they  were  merely  because  they  had  lifted  them- 
selves far  above  the  mob,  who  wrote  the  Declar- 
ation and  risked  their  necks  by  signing  it  and 
struck  off  the  Constitution.  If  it  had  n't  been 
for  those  same  leaders,  England  would  have 
thrashed  the  colonies  soundly.  The  people 
did  n't  even  fight  the  Revolution  to  a  successful 
finish ;  would  n't  have,  at  least,  if  it  were  left 
solely  to  the  people.  Whole  droves  of  them 
would  quit  when  they  felt  like  it  after  a  given 
campaign,  and  go  back  amiably  to  their  own 
private  pursuits,  lots  of  'em  —  what  we  'd  call 
deserting  now.  Then  their  great  leaders,  who 
never  quit  for  a  minute,  would  lambaste  the  quit- 
ters among  them  back  into  action  again.  And 
while  Washington  and  a  few  more  of  his  kind 
were  making  them  keep  everlastingly  at  it,  an- 
other leader,  who  had  educated  himself  miles 

267 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

ahead  of  the  people,  went  to  Europe  and  induced 
the  wisest  men  in  France  to  send  the  help  which 
went  far  toward  crushing  the  English  in  the 
colonies.  If  the  Revolution  were  left  to  the 
tavern  keepers  along  the  Philadelphia  water- 
front or  the  farmers  and  woodsmen  up  and  down 
the  coast,  the  only  result  of  the  whole  fuss  would 
have  been  the  annual  convention  here  of  the 
Daughters  of  the  Revolution. 

"  And  as  for  the  War  of  1812,  it  was  '  the  pee- 
pul '  right  in  this  City  of  Washington  who  scat- 
tered like  silly  sheep  when  a  force  of  British 
only  about  one  fifth  the  size  of  the  American 
Army  opposed  to  it  wandered  into  sight.  Every- 
body, from  the  President  down,  turned  tail  and 
let  the  English  walk  into  Washington  and  make 
a  bonfire  of  the  White  House.  They  did  n't  have 
a  real  leader.  Suppose  one  lone  leader  like  Phil 
Sheridan  had  clattered  into  town  when  they  were 
turning  tail,  something  would  have  happened, 
would  n't  it?  And  who  should  receive  credit  for 
the  repulse  of  the  British  that  would  have  fol- 
lowed, the  five  or  six  American  soldiers  who 
could  not  face  a  lone  Britisher  unless  directed 
by  some  one  above  the  mental  and  moral  level 
of  the  dear  people,  or  the  leader  who  single- 

268 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

handed  had  snatched  victory  out  of  stupid  bun- 
gling? As  the  same  Phil  Sheridan  and  his  kind 
have  done  and  will  do  again  so  long  as  the  world 
lasts.  The  people  played  party  politics  in  that 
same  War  of  1812  as  they  never  did  before,  and 
botched  it  from  beginning  to  end  thereby,  and 
despite  the  brilliant  work  of  a  few  sailor  leaders 
we  probably  would  have  lost  in  the  end  if  Eng- 
land had  n't  been  so  terribly  exhausted  while  try- 
ing to  down  a  lone  individual  who  happened  to 
be  one  of  the  great  geniuses  of  history.  i  The 
pee-pul '  make  me  very  weary." 

"  O,  Mom,  how  can  you !  It  was  the  people, 
was  n't  it,  who,  once  we  'd  gone  into  this  present 
war,  immediately  raised  a  big  army  in  record 
time?" 

"  No ;  in  one  sentence  you  're  wrong  twice.  A 
very  few  leaders,  such  as  they  are,  passed  the 
conscription  law  which  made  any  sort  of  army 
possible.  And  it  is  n't  a  big  army.  It 's  a  puny 
army  compared  with  the  other  armies  in  the  pres- 
ent war.  What  there  is  of  it  is  doing  its  work 
beautifully,  and  in  time,  I  hope,  it  will  be  as 
good  as  the  French,  British,  and  other  armies. 
But  how  can  you  say  we  have  a  '  big  '  army  when, 
as  representative  of  the  greatest  nation  in  the 

269 


THE  WAR-WHIEL  IN  WASHINGTON 

whole  war,  it  is  of  less  importance  in  a  military 
sense  to-day  than  the  army  of  little  Belgium  or 
of  tiny  Serbia  or  even  of  Portugal?  Think  of 
it,  less  important  than  the  little  Portuguese 
Army!  And  the  people,  as  usual,  go  along  flap- 
ping their  wings,  and  screaming  abut  '  U-S,  Us,' 
and  they  don't  even  realize  that  Portugal  is  in 
the  war  at  all. 

"  What  did  *  the  pee-pul '  have  to  do  with  rais- 
ing the  present  army,  small  as  it  is?  Nothing. 
I  'd  like  to  see  the  conscription  law  referred  to 
a  vote  of  '  the  pee-pul,'  that  •  s  all.  What  is  con- 
scription, anyway,  but  a  legal  method  of  forcing 
the  dear  '  pee-pul '  to  do  something  that  they 
would  n't  do  properly  unless  compelled  to?  And 
the  people  of  this  particular  country  have  over- 
fed themselves  for  so  many  years  on  the  notion 
that  business,  big  business,  is  everything  that 
they  are  still  pointing  with  pride  to  the  big  busi- 
ness being  done  in  this  town  as  if  business  were 
winning  the  war.  Soldiers  and  sailors  and  big 
guns  are  going  to  win  the  war,  not  big  business. 
If—  " 

"  But  listen !  We  've  just  started,  Mom. 
Wait  at  least  until  - 

"  <  Wait !  wait !  wait ! '  Wait  nothing.  The 
270 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

instant  that  Germany  jumped  into  war  little  Bel- 
gium, or  a  King  who  is  a  real  leader,  bad  an 
army  against  the  Germans  which  was  efficient 
enough  to  stop  the  greatest  army  in  the  world 
at  least  long  enough  to  enable  the  French  Army 
to  race  to  the  firing-line  in  taxicabs  and  anything 
else  on  wheels  that  could  be  commandeered. 
And  here,  almost  four  years  later,  almost  a  year 
after  we  entered  the  war  ourselves,  we  're  still  at 
the  point  where  even  now  it  is  somewhat  of  a 
shock  to  us  to  read  accounts  in  the  newspapers 
which  show  that  our  men  actually  are  being 
killed  and  injured  on  the  battle-lines  in  France. 
Months  after  the  first  draft  was  called  out,  or 
theoretically  called  out,  there  were  still  about 
two  hundred  thousand  of  that  first  draft,  all  sup- 
posed to  be  at  least  in  uniform,  toasting  their 
shins  round  their  home  fireplaces.  Think  of  it ! 
Declaring  war  in  April,  and  in  the  following 
January  two  hundred  thousand  of  the  first  men 
1  called '  still  waiting  round  their  homes  without 
even  definite  news  as  to  when  their  preliminary 
training  is  to  be  begun.  And  the  dear  '  pee-pul ' 
have  been  spending  so  much  time  asking,  *  When 
will  the  war  be  over? '  that  they  don't  even  know 
that  the  two  hundred  thousand  are  still  warming 

271 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

chairs  in  their  home  towns.  That 's  about  all 
*  the  pee-pul '  have  done  since  the  war  started  — 
stand  round  and  ask,  '  When  will  the  war  end? ' 
A  fine  way,  that,  to  go  up  against  a  mixed-ale 
brawler,  looking  back  over  one's  shoulder  all  the 
time  in  the  hope  that  something '11  come  along 
that  will  stop  the  scrap.  Shucks !  '  The  pee- 
pul  '  are  a  lot  of  fussfusses." 

"  Outside  of  that,  though,  we  're  all  right, 
are  n't  we,  old  Mother  Grumble?  " 

"  We  are  not,  and  we  never  shall  be  all  right 
unless  real  leaders  who  are  not  pacifists  at  heart 
jump  above  the  '  pee-pul '  and  make  us  stop  our 
monkeyshines  —  that  or  a  pummeling  of  '  the 
pee-pul '  by  the  Germans  themselves  which  will 
make  this  crowd  over  here,  even  the  '  leaders,'  so 
mad  they  '11  quit  asking  when  the  war  is  going  to 
end  and  jump  in  full  speed  and  end  it.  But  there 
is  n't  one  red-blooded  man  in  high  place  to-day 
who  in  his  heart  believes  even  in  universal  mili- 
tary training  —  not  a  single  civilian  in  high 
executive  place,  I  mean;  not  one.  The  whole 
Mutual  Admiration  Society  is  made  up  of  dear 
souls  who  inwardly,  no  matter  what  they  say 
in  print,  believe  even  now  that  (  diplomatic '  ef- 
forts to  demoralize  the  Teutonic  allies  are  more 

272 


The  extreme  emptiness  of  that  little  black  bag 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

important  than  pumping  lead  and  steel  into  the 
beasts. 

"  And  just  wait  until t  the  pee-pul '  begin  to  feel 
the  real  pinch  of  war  a  bit !  Wait  till  pa  and  ma 
learn  that  gasoline  is  needed  so  much  abroad  that 
they  '11  have  to  experience  the  horror  of  sitting 
round  the  house  on  a  pleasant  Sunday  afternoon 
instead  of  taking  their  customary  spin  of  sixty 
miles  over  Long  Island  or  Illinois  roads !  While 
the  boys  abroad  are  trying  magnificently  to  get 
over  the  top,  '  the  pee-pul '  back  home,  once  the 
pinch  comes,  will  only  hamper  the  real  sufferers 
with  their  whines  about ;  '  When  is  it  going  to 
end?  When  can  we  ride  in  our  flivver? '  Bah! 
I  wish  we  had  one  real  forceful  leader  back  here 
at  home  who  never  heard  about  l  over  there '  or 
'  over  the  top/  but  would  stand  right  up  on  his 
hind  legs  and  scream,  i  Over  the  Rhine ! '  loud 
enough  to  make  the  whole  shebang  of  us  jump  to 
his  banner  and  do  it.  Heaven  knows  the  episto- 
lary and  oratorical  efforts  to  make  Austria  fall 
out  with  Germany  and  all  the  rest  of  these  intel- 
lectual efforts  to  win  the  war  have  their  good 
points;  everything  helps,  and  I  hope  the  letter- 
writers  accomplish  what  they  're  after.  But  the 
intellectual  fighting  is  secondary,  or  twenty-sec- 

273 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

ondary,  to  the  need  right  now  of  real  leaders  who 
can  holler  '  Over  the  Rhine '  in  a  way  that  will 
make  the  people  see  red.  As  somebody  or  other 
once  said,  '  The  great  trouble  with  Ireland  is  the 
Irish/  and  the  chief  trouble  with  the  people  in 
this  democratic  republic  is  the  Democrats  and 
the  Republicans  and  the  people.  Heavens!  I 
wish  Napoleon  had  been  born  on  the  East  Side  of 
New  York  a  generation  ago,  and  early  had  gone 
into  Bowery  politics!  He  would  have  jumped 
right  out  of  the  thick  of  the  people  long  ago  and 
landed  here  in  Washington,  and  we  'd  go  over  the 
Rhine.  But  in  the  whole  crowd  running  things 
here  he  has  n't  a  third-rate  representative." 

The  chief  trouble  with  any  argument  the 
Missus  advances  is  that,  being  a  woman,  she  does 
not  use  her  reasoning  powers  as  we  business  men 
do,  but  lets  her  emotion  sway  her  ideas,  which  a 
man  never  does.  The  first  thing  I  knew  she  was 
criticizing  the  Secretary  of  War  himself  because 
he  was  n't  Napoleon !  And  the  wife  never  had 
seen  the  secretary,  so  far  as  I  knew;  certainly 
never  had  talked  things  over  with  him,  as  I  had. 
While  the  wife  was  opening  up  on  the  common 
people  I  was  thinking  how  differently  she  would 
have  spoken  had  she  been  with  me  only  the  day 

274 


before  while  I  was  talking  the  war  situation  over 
with  Secretary  Baker  himself. 

"  Mr.  Secretary,"  I  had  said,  "  what  sort  of 
provision  in  the  way  of  anti-aircraft  guns  has 
been  made  for  New  York  City,  if  any?  " 

"  I  don't  care  to  discuss  that,"  the  secretary 
had  answered.  Then  Secretary  Baker  had  begun 
to  talk  with  some  one  else,  and  before  I  could 
think  of  any  other  question  to  ask  him  somebody 
threw  me  out. 

That 's  the  only  way  to  get  a  proper  appreci- 
ation of  a  man  —  have  a  good  heart-to-heart  talk 
with  him.  Wherefore,  just  to  prove  to  the  wife 
that  the  Secretary  of  War  was  a  splendid  chap 
and  a  born  leader  of  men,  I  took  the  trouble  to 
interrupt  her  long  enough  to  relate  in  detail 
some  of  the  incidents  that  attended  the  initiation 
of  Mr.  Baker  into  his  momentous  job  of  Secre- 
tary of  War.  The  incidents,  I  know,  endeared 
him  to  me  tremendously. 

It  was  a  day  in  March,  1916, 1  remember,  when 
Mr.  Baker  first  entered  upon  his  new  duties  in 
the  State,  War  and  Navy  building  at  Washing- 
ton. Also  it  was  the  day,  so  I  now  reminded  the 
wife,  that  the  news  burst  upon  Washington  and 
the  country  that  Villa  and  his  gang  had  crossed 

275 


THE  WAK-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

the  Mexican  border,  and  at  Columbus,  New 
Mexico,  had  killed  nineteen  American  citizens, 
including  soldiers  of  the  Thirteenth  Cavalry,  and 
had  wounded  at  least  a  score  of  other  Americans. 
And  the  fight  had  waged  until  more  than  fifty 
Mexicans  had  been  killed  in  the  Columbus  neigh- 
borhood and  seventy-five  others  shot  dead  on 
Mexican  soil. 

Only  two  days  before  all  these  happenings  on 
the  border  a  famous  New  York  newspaper  had 
printed  the  spreading  head-line, 

N.  D.  BAKER,  PACIFIST,  TO  BE  WAR 
SECRETARY 

And  thus  it  was  that  the  country  was  acquainted 
with  the  fact  that  the  President  at  last  had  found 
a  successor  to  the  able  Lindley  M.  Garrison.  It 
may  be  remembered  incidentally  that  Mr.  Gar- 
rison while  Secretary  of  War  never  had  had  his 
name  put  up  for  membership  in  the  Mutual  Ad- 
miration Society  mentioned  by  the  wife  in  her 
tirade,  and  one  thing  had  led  to  another  until 
finally  Mr.  Garrison  had  quit. 

Under  the  head-line  above  the  country  was 
told  who  he  was  and  how  the  genial  young  man 
had  got  his  job : 

276 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

Newton  D.  Baker,  ex-Mayor  of  Cleveland,  has  been 
selected  by  President  Wilson  for  the  office  of  Secre- 
tary of  War.  Mr.  Baker  is  a  member  of  a  number  of 
peace  societies. 

The  President  and  Mr.  Baker  are  warm  personal 
friends.  The  President  tendered  the  Secretaryship  of 
War  to  Mr.  Baker  in  accordance  with  his  decision 
to  choose  a  lawyer  from  the  Middle  West  [ !]  for  the 
post. 

Mr.  Baker  is  a  Democrat  and  was  a  conspicuous 
figure  in  the  Baltimore  convention  that  nominated 
Mr.  Wilson  for  the  Presidency.  He  was  the  original 
Wilson  man  in  his  State,  voting  the  Cuyahoga  dele- 
gation to  the  Baltimore  convention  for  Wilson  instead 
of  Harmon. 

Mr.  Baker's  views  on  national  defense  have  ex- 
cited great  interest  here  in  Washington.  He  has 
been  classified  as  a  pacifist.  As  a  member  of  peace 
societies  he  has  taken  an  active  part  against  national 
defense  measures.  He  is  a  member  of  the  Cleveland 
Peace  Society  and  of  several  other  kindred  organiza- 
tions, but  says  he  sees  no  incongruity  in  remaining  a 
member  and  being  Secretary  of  War. 

Mr.  Baker  first  attracted  attention  through  his 
eloquence  as  an  after-dinner  talker. 

I  remember  how  pleased  we  had  all  been  when 
reading  this  glowing  tribute  to  the  new  Secretary 
of  War,  and  how  it  had  thrilled  me  personally 
upon  learning  that  at  last  we  were  to  have  a  Sec- 

277 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

retary  of  War  who  was  a  good  after-dinner 
speaker.  And  one  could  see  in  every  line  of  the 
tribute  that  here  was  a  great,  red-blooded,  fight- 
ing leader  of  peace-society  movements  "  against 
national  defense  measures,"  just  the  sort  of  man 
to  select  to  head  our  War  Department  at  the  mo- 
ment that  our  country  was  trying  to  balance 
itself  on  the  brink  of  the  greatest  war  of  the 
world.  It  so  happened  that  I  was  in  Washing- 
ton on  that  March  day  when  the  new  Secretary  of 
War  came  to  the  capital  to  take  personal  charge 
of  whipping  our  "  national  defense  measures  " 
into  shape,  and  I  remember  now  how  I  had  hoped, 
even  prayed  fervently,  that  day  that  some  way 
could  be  found  to  keep  from  our  new  young  sec- 
retary the  distressing  news  that  our  soldiers  had 
just  had  a  vulgar  fight  with  a  lot  of  horrid  Mexi- 
cans, some  of  whom  had  actually  so  far  forgotten 
themselves  as  to  shoot  our  people  dead. 

Some  one,  I  was  glad  to  see,  did  delay  the 
sending  of  the  shocking  news  at  least  long  enough 
to  permit  the  new  Secretary  of  War  to  make  a 
care-free,  pleasant  little  call  of  formality  at  the 
White  House  during  the  early  hours  of  his  first 
day  in  office.  As  he  came  forth  from  that  short 
visit,  gently  smiling,  he  was  asked  what  he  was 

278 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

going  to  do  with  his  new  job,  now  that  he  had  it. 

"  Well,  being  a  greenhorn,"  the  Secretary  of 
War  answered  in  his  delightfully  diffident  man- 
ner, "  I  can't  say  that  I  have  any  policy  of  my 
own." 

Whereupon  he  started  westward  out  of  the 
White  House  grounds,  and  in  a  few  minutes  was 
seated  for  the  first  time  at  his  new  desk  in  the 
War  Department.  And  there,  lying  among  the 
beautiful  flowers  that  decorated  his  desk,  was  a 
communication  which  some  thoughtless  person 
had  cruelly  placed  where  the  eye  of  the  Secretary 
of  War  could  not  help  but  see  it.  He  picked  it 
up  and  read  the  news  that  seven  United  States 
troopers  of  the  Thirteenth  and  twelve  civilians, 
one  of  them  a  woman,  were  lying  dead,  killed  by 
foreigners  on  American  soil,  the  intimation  being 
gathered  from  the  communication  that  details  of 
further  casualties  were  to  follow.  Bad  as  the 
news  was  to  the  rest  of  us,  it  must  have  been 
trebly  distressing  to  a  Secretary  of  War  chiefly 
noted  as  an  ardent  worker  "  against  national  de- 
fense measures." 

Scarcely  had  the  secretary  read  the  communi- 
cation when  into  his  office  spilled  a  group  of  ex- 
cited newspaper  correspondents  representing  the 

279 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

news  associations  and  the  great  dailies  of  the 
country  at  Washington.  If  any  of  them  had 
grown  blase  in  his  work,  that  reporter  showed  no 
sign  of  boredom  on  the  March  day  when  he  and 
his  colleagues  approached  the  new  officer  of  the 
Cabinet.  Here  was  "  news,"  a  new  Secretary  of 
War  not  only  taking  up  the  direction  of  our  mili- 
tary affairs  at  a  time  when  a  world  war  was  try- 
ing to  shatter  civilization,  but  also  stepping  into 
office  at  a  moment  when  the  bodies  of  our  own 
dead,  lying  prone  on  American  soil,  were  still 
warm  to  the  touch.  "Now  we  shall  get  an  in- 
terview worth  while ! "  that  was  the  attitude 
with  which  the  Washington  correspondents 
crowded  into  the  office  of  the  suave,  smiling  Sec- 
retary of  War  to  greet  him.  "Now  for  a  good 
old,  red-hot,  sizzling — " 

"Ah,"  remarked  the  secretary,  after  the  first 
formal  bows  and  hand-shakes,  the  exclamation 
having  escaped  the  secretary's  lips  as  he  noted 
that  one  of  the  reporters  happened  to  be  gazing 
in  the  general  direction  of  a  bunch  of  flowers 
prettily  arranged  just  in  front  of  Mr.  Baker's 
revolving-chair  —  "ah,  I  see  that  you  love  flow- 
ers, too.  These  were  sent  to  me  by  an  admirer; 
I  should  say  a  friend." 

280 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

Some  one  tried  impatiently  to  get  some  sort  of 
start  on  the  all-absorbing  subject  of  the  bloody 
raid  that  had  just  been  made  on  American  soil 
by  the  Mexicans,  of  the  American  girl  hideously 
butchered,  the  soldiers  and  civilians  lying  dead 
and  dying,  and  all  the  murder  and  rape  and  black 
ruin.  But  the  secretary  had  not  finished  his  dis- 
course on  the  beauties  of  the  flowers,  and  it  would 
not  do,  of  course,  to  interrupt  him. 

"  Flowers  are  an  obsession  with  me,"  the  smil- 
ing secretary  went  on.  "  I  am  passionately  fond 
of  them.  Back  home  in  Cleveland  it  was  always 
one  of  the  greatest  joys  of  my  days  to  come  home 
in  the  evening  and  water  my  plants.  And  I  par- 
ticularly love  my  pansies." 

That  was  all.  A  dazed  group  of  correspond- 
ents came  forth  from  the  flowery,  perfumed  air 
of  the  War  Department  and  staggered  into  the 
nearest  drug-store  to  calm  themselves  with  ice- 
cream sodas.  And  then  and  there  an  irreverent 
reporter  first  gave  voice  to  the  nickname  by 
which  Washington  has  affectionately  known  the 
Secretary  of  War  ever  since. 

"  Pansy  Baker ! "  cried  the  reporter,  admir- 
ingly. "  Now  there 's  the  kind  of  man  I  like  to 
see  at  the  head  of  our  army  in  times  like  these. 

281 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

Somewhat  inclined  to  be  gruff  and  headstrong, 
so  Pansy  struck  me,  but  a  great,  big  rough  dia- 
mond at  heart,  the  kind  so  little  seen  in  the 
effete  East,  but  common  enough,  they  say,  in 
places  away  out  in  Cleveland.  And  that 's  the 
sort  of  lad  we  need  right  now  to  run  our  army,  a 
big,  two-fisted  rough  diamond  like  Pansy 
Baker!" 

No'w  this  tribute  was  voiced  by  a  brilliant 
newspaper  man,  one  noted  for  his  keen,  analy- 
tical mind  and  his  fund  of  rare  judgment,  in 
which  I  have  always  placed  special  confidence. 
What  were  the  emotional  tirades  of  the  wife 
compared  with  this  thoughtful  analysis  by  the 
clever  newspaper  correspondent  I  have  just 
quoted?  And  this  newspaper  man  of  brains,  a 
trained  observer  of  men  and  affairs,  had  given  his 
unqualified  approval,  as  his  words  quoted  here 
show,  of  young  Mr.  Baker  as  the  right  man  in 
the  right  place.  That  was  and  is  enough  for  me. 
Let  the  wife  rave,  say  I,  and  that 's  just  what  I 
did  say  to  her,  once  I  had  told  her  all  about  the 
new  Secretary  of  War's  first  day  in  office  and 
had  quoted  for  her  benefit  the  appreciation  of  the 
secretary  as  voiced  by  the  brilliant  correspond- 
ent while  he  was  staggering  out  of  the  ice-crearn- 

282 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

soda  salon.  And  what  had  his  wife  to  say?  She 
just  threw  back  her  head  and  laughed  in  what 
one  might  almost  call  a  very  vulgar  manner,  re- 
fusing even  to  reply  when  I  asked  the  cause  of 
her  sudden  merriment. 

"  Steve,"  she  said  at  last,  wiping  her  eyes, 
"  how  old  are  you,  really?  "  And  immediately 
she  seemed  not  to  hear  my  answer,  but  suddenly 
had  grown  moody  and  thoughtful  again. 

A  queer  race,  women.  What  the  deuce  had  my 
exact  age  to  do,  even  remotely,  with  the  serious 
matters  under  discussion?  I  shall  not  go  so  far 
as  to  say  that  woman  in  general  is  irrational, 
but  there  are  times  when  I  cannot  help  feeling 
that  it  is  almost  as  close  to  impossible  for  a 
woman  to  think  connectedly  as  it  is  for  the  mildly 
insane.  For  instance,  I  had  come  home  to  our 
hotel  room  somewhat  late  only  a  few  nights  be- 
fore the  day  the  wife  abused  the  common  people, 
and  in  the  darkness  I  awakened  her  to  tell  her  en- 
thusiastically about  a  beautifully  printed  volume 
I  had  picked  up  during  the  day  for  only  two 
dollars.  I  was  about  to  snap  on  the  electric 
light  to  show  her  my  purchase  when  she  woke 
up  sufficiently  to  explain  that  during  the  evening 
the  electric  circuit  supplying  our  floor  had  blown 

283 


THE  WAK-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

a  fuse  or  something  and  was  out  of  commission. 

"What  is  this  wonderful  book  you  bought?" 
she  asked. 

"  It 's  called  '  The  Life  and  Addresses  of  the 
Hon.  Josephus  Daniels/  "  I  told  her. 

"  Well,  don't  light  the  gas  now  to  show  it  to 
me,  dearie.  You  might  blow  it  out,"  she  said. 

Now  here  's  my  point :  The  Missus  was  per- 
fectly aware  of  the  fact  when  she  made  this  re- 
mark that  all  my  life  I  have  been  accustomed  to 
the  use  of  illuminating  gas,  that  I  thoroughly 
understood,  quite  as  well  as  she  did,  that  to  blow 
out  the  light  and  thus  permit  the  gas  to  flood  the 
room  would  seriously  injure,  doubtless  kill,  us. 
Therefore  by  what  "  reasoning  "  power  had  her 
woman's  "  mind "  swung  all  the  way  from 
thoughts  concerning  a  purchase  I  had  made  that 
day  to  the  sudden  and  wholly  irrelevant  idea, 
notion,  rather,  that  we  were  in  danger  of  gas 
poisoning?  I  ask  the  world  fair,  can  you  beat 
it?  And  yet  in  affairs  of  the  home,  in  conducting 
the  war,  in  the  selection  of  national  leaders,  in 
anything  and  everything,  it  is  always  woman  who 
figuratively  jumps  aboard  the  passenger-train  of 
life  and  tries  to  tell  mere  man  where  he  gets  off ! 

And  a  moment  after  she  had  asked  me  my  exact 
284 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

age  that  day  she  seemed  to  have  forgotten  that 
she  had  asked  me;  for  in  the  next  breath,  with- 
out waiting  for  me  to  reply,  she  was  again  on  the 
subject  of  the  fighting  abilities  of  the  head  of 
our  War  Department. 

"  Now  that  you  mention  Secretary  Baker's 
first  day  in  office,"  thus  mused  the  wife  out  loud, 
her  brows  knitted  in  thought,  "  I  half  remember 
the  first  statement  the  War  Department  made 
that  day  regarding  the  Villa  raid  into  New 
Mexico.  As  I  recall  it,  instead  of  coming  out 
with  a  smashing,  strong  announcement  that  the 
murder  of  our  people  by  the  Mexicans  must  stop 
and  would  be  stopped,  the  very  first  sentence  was 
a  sort  of  apologetic  statement,  assuring  us  that 
the  administration  was  not  going  to  show  resent- 
ment against  Villa  and  his  cutthroats  to  any 
forceful  extent.  The  whole  statement,  the  very 
first  '  official '  sentence  pronounced  by  the  new 
Secretary  of  War,  has  stuck  more  or  less  in  my 
memory  because  the  ideas  it  expressed  were  so 
thoroughly  in  character  with  the  Administra- 
tion's permanent  war  policy  of  just  'making  a 
showing.' " 

There  was  no  use  in  standing  there  and  try- 
ing to  correct  the  wife's  erroneous  thinking  by 

285 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

mere  noise.  I  was  in  no  position  to  give  battle 
because,  I  must  confess,  the  gist  of  that  first 
statement  of  the  secretary's  had  long  ago  escaped 
my  memory.  But  the  more  I  thought  the  thing 
over,  the  more  I  realized  that  whatever  the  sec- 
retary did  say  that  day  was  the  official  thought 
of  the  whole  administration  and  not  the  mere 
personal  ideas  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  then  the 
more  sure  I  felt  that  the  wife  must  be  wholly 
mistaken  in  saying  that  the  statement  was  not  a 
forceful  expression  of  the  intense  action  about  to 
be  begun  to  stop  the  raids. 

I  don't  like  to  let  the  wife  get  away  with  these 
arguments  of  hers  without  at  least  letting  her 
know  that  she  has  been  in  a  battle.  Wherefore 
when,  later  on  that  forenoon,  I  was  strolling 
along  Pennsylvania  Avenue  I  slipped  into  a 
local  newspaper  office  and  asked  a  clerk  to  let 
me  see  a  bound  file  of  their  paper  for  March, 
1916.  And  simply  to  prove  to  the  wife  that  the 
Secretary  of  War,  speaking  for  his  Commander- 
in-Chief,  had  not  made  his  initial  bow  to  the 
people  by  giving  forth  a  half-hearted  and  apolo- 
getic promise  merely  to  "  make  a  decent  show- 
ing "  in  retaliating  against  the  Villa  butchers,  I 

286 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

copied  the  opening  paragraph  of  that  statement 
and  brought  it  home  to  the  wife  exactly  as 
printed  in  the  newspapers  the  day  after  Secretary 
of  War  Baker  took  office.  Secretary  Baker  had 
begun,  I  found,  as  follows: 

There  is  no  intention  of  entering  Mexico  in  force. 
A  sufficient  body  of  mobile  troops  will  be  sent  in  to 
locate  and  dispose  of  the  band  or  bands  that  attacked 
Columbus.  So  soon  as  the  forces  of  the  defacto  Gov- 
ernment can  take  control  of  the  situation  any  forces  of 
the  United  States  then  remaining  in  Mexico  will,  of 
course,  be  withdrawn. 

Triumphantly,  there  in  the  Washington  news- 
paper office,  I  underscored  heavily  the  words, 
"  locate  and  dispose  of,"  with  a  double  line  be- 
neath the  word  dispose.  And  half  an  hour  later, 
while  we  were  lunching  up-stairs  in  our  hotel 
room,  I  grinned  maliciously  and  handed  the  wife 
the  copy  of  the  secretary's  first  official  words  in 
office. 

"  So  that 's  what  you  call  typical  of  '  this  whole 
administration's  permanent  war  policy  of  just 
making  a  showing,'  eh?"  I  cried  with  gusto. 
The  wife's  eyes  ran  over  the  lines,  and  in  turn 

287 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

she  underscored  the  first  sentence  twice  and  drew 
a  line  under  every  other  word  in  the  paragraph 
also. 

"  Yes,  that 's  typical,"  she  said,  handing  me 
back  the  paper  with  a  smile  that  lacked  merri- 
ment. "  '  There  is  no  intention  of  entering  Mex- 
ico in  force.'  I  distinctly  remember  those  open- 
ing words  now,  and  I  recall  that  I  've  heard  them 
in  slightly  different  form  every  few  days  since 
then." 

"  Well,"  I  exclaimed  in  astonishment,  "  did  n't 
the  administration  send  an  armed  force  into 
Mexico?  " 

"  Yes,"  the  wife  agreed  listlessly.  "  It  retali- 
ated against  the  Mexicans  with  comparatively 
the  same  *  force  '  it  finally  decided  to  send  against 
the  Germans.  It  sent  into  Mexico  a  '  force ' 
just  big  enough  to  enable  another  group  of 
American  boys  to  give  up  their  lives,  but  not 
big  enough  to  locate  anything,  dispose  of  any- 
thing. In  these  days  of  the  wireless  the  splendid 
little  band  of  fighters  who  did  go  in  could  not, 
imfortunately,  *  cut  the  cable,'  as  Dewey  did  at 
Manila,  and  so  be  free  of  Washington  interfer- 
ence. And,  you  may  remember,  they  just  had 
about  time  to  bury  their  dead  when  word  came 

288 


And  the  extravagance  of  her   language  left  me  crumpled  in   my 

chair 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

from  Washington  to  come  home.  And  nothing 
came  of  anything." 

"  But  listen,  old  girl  —  look  at  the  way  we 
waded  into  them  when  one  of  their  old  savages 
refused  to  salute  the  Stars  and  Stripes  after  in- 
sulting the  flag.  In  next  to  no  time  this  admin- 
istration had  war-ships  and  marines  and  sailors 
and—" 

"  Yes,"  interrupted  the  wife,  still  listlessly 
sipping  her  tea.  "  I ' ve  been  thinking  of  Vera 
Cruz,  too.  We  went  down  there,  I  remember, 
and  went  into  Mexico  a  sufficient  number  of  city 
squares  from  the  water-front  to  have  another 
batch  of  our  boys  shot.  And  that 's  all  that  ever 
happened.  At  the  first  sight  of  blood  Washing- 
ton hurriedly  called  the  whole  thing  off.  As  we 
had  gone  there  to  '  make  them  salute  the  flag ' 
with  only  a  pretense  of  a  force,  the  only  thing 
that  came  out  of  the  entire  fiasco  was  an  impres- 
sive line  of  about  twenty  gun-caissons  moving  up 
through  lower  New  York  one  morning  with  a  flag 
covered  coffin  on  each  caisson.  Nothing  else  had 
happened;  nobody  had  been  forced  to  salute  the 
flag.  After  the  Columbus  affair  Villa  laughed 
at  us,  and  the  raids  were  n't  stopped,  have  n't 
been  even  yet.  And  after  Vera  Cruz  old  Huerta 

289 


THE  WAK-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

laughed  at  us  and  still  refused  to  salute  the  flag. 
And  Mexico  told  the  lads  sent  in  to  '  locate  and 
dispose  of  Villa  to  get  out  of  Mexico,  and 
Washington  humbly  obeyed.  Whereupon  our 
splendid  little  '  army/  or  what  the  Mexicans  had 
spared  of  it,  had  to  come  home  again  in  shame- 
faced fashion  because  it  had  been  ordered  to  do 
so  by  a  group  of  executive  superiors  who  never  in 
their  lives  have  shown  as  much  real  gumption 
and  fighting  spirit  as  you  '11  find  in  any  class  elec- 
tion in  a  young  ladies'  seminary." 

"Now  wait,  Mrs.  Grumble.  Do  you  think 
that 's  a  loyal  way  to  — " 

"  Oh,  dammit,  shut  up  with  this  everlasting 
parrot  talk  of  '  loyalty !  loyalty !  loyalty  ' !  "  cried 
the  wife,  springing  up  from  the  table.  The  ex- 
travagance of  her  language  left  me  crumpled  in 
my  chair,  jaw  sagging  and  too  shocked  to  speak. 
"  Great  heavens ! "  she  stormed  on,  pacing  the 
floor  as  she  talked,  "  as  somebody  or  other  said 
lately,  ' Whose  war  is  this,  anyway?'  Is  it  the 
private  property  of  estimable  after-dinner  speak- 
ers from  the  Middle  West,  or  the  personal  prop- 
erty of  learned  pedagogues  who  preached  against 
even  decent  preparedness  when  our  own  people 
were  being  shelled  and  drowned,  and  then  kept 

290 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

on  preaching  sheer  insanity  until  enough  of  the 
'  disloyal '  had  got  together  to  shake  some  sem- 
blance of  common  sense  into  the  whole  crowd  of 
mollycoddles  —  does  this  war  belong  solely  to 
the  people's  servants  or  to  the  people?  This  is 
my  war,  your  war,  our  war ! 

"  '  Loyalty ! '  That  word  in  every  meaning  but 
the  right  one  has  been  hammered  into  the  people 
day  in  and  day  out  during  the  last  few  months  as 
it  never  before  was  jammed  down  the  country's 
throat  in  the  whole  history  of  the  nation.  Day 
and  night  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  and  every- 
where else  round  here  the  petty-politics  spokes- 
men of  the  Mutual  Admiration  Society,  the  thou- 
sands of  flatterers  all  over  this  city  who  have 
been  suddenly  thrust  into  a  sort  of  prominence 
by  appointment  to  jobs  which  in  turn  flatters  the 
flatterers,  correspondents  of  Democratic  news- 
papers, special  writers  for  magazines  who  have 
been  coddled  and  made  much  of  —  all  day  every 
day  the  whole  crowd  bends  to  the  task  of  con- 
vincing the  people  that  it  is  'loyalty'  to  sub- 
scribe to  anything  and  everything  the  Mutual 
Admiration  Society  sanctions,  but  '  sedition '  to 
say  one  word  that  might  *  embarrass '  the  dear 
old  Democratic  party.  As  if  the  most  important 

291 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

movement  the  world  has  ever  undertaken  and 
the  rapid  and  successful  execution  of  that  move- 
ment were  of  secondary  importance  to  the  per- 
sonal advancement  and  fame  of  politicians  small 
enough  to  put  their  own  miserable  little  personal 
ambitions  above  a  generous  and  unpartizan  and 
united  effort  to  bring  the  great  movement  to 
success!  Bah!  For  three  of  the  most  humili- 
ating years  that  a  soft-headed  people  ever  experi- 
enced the  whole  Mutual  Admiration  Society 
tried,  on  the  plea  of  '  loyalty !  loyalty ! '  to  silence 
every  decent  protest  against  submitting  to  the 
vile  insults  of  that  big  bully  abroad.  Day  and 
night  the  self-appointed  owners  of  this  war  stood 
round  with  a  frown,  shaking  their  collective 
fingers  severely  and  crying :  '  Be  loyal,  good 
people!  Stand  by  the  President!'  until  almost 
the  entire  land  had  become  convinced  that  the 
heavenly  height  of  pure  loyalty  was  to  sit  in  the 
house  and  watch  a  drunken  beast  attack  your 
mother  and  then  applaud  your  father  for  not  re- 
senting the  beast's  attack." 

I  broke  in  for  a  minute,  or  tried  to,  and  asked 
the  wife  to  calm  herself  and  forget  it. 

"  I  '11  not  forget  it,"  she  exploded.  "  I  've  had 
this  '  loyalty '  stuff  crammed  into  me  so  much  re- 

292 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

cently  that  I  'm  going  to  get  the  whole  thing  out 
of  my  system.  It  makes  me  sick,  sore,  and  tired 
to  think  that  when  at  last  we  were  dragged  into 
this  fight  by  the  scruff  of  our  necks  the  whole  Mu- 
tual Admiration  Society  instantly  swung  all  the 
way  round,  once  they  found  themselves  forced  at 
least  —  and  at  last  —  into  starting  toward  doing 
the  things  that,  during  the  three  years  preceding 
they  had  tried  to  stop  any  one  even  from  advo- 
cating under  pain  of  being  <  disloyal.' 

"  And  the  minute  they  had  been  kicked  into  an 
upright  position,  where  they  at  last  wrere  shoul- 
der to  shoulder  with  the  decent  peoples  of 
Europe,  they  began  right  away  to  head  their 
whole  tribe  of  press  agents  here  in  a  wholly  dif- 
ferent direction.  Three  cheers  for  everything! 
Hurray !  we  're  going'  to  strangle  the  kaiser  to 
death  —  on  paper.  The  press  agents  of  cabinet 
officers  came  out  with  statements  so  extravagant 
and  absurd  that  assistant  secretaries  that  I  could 
name  hung  their  heads  in  shame  when  they  heard 
the  impossible  claims  made  by  their  chiefs.  '  We 
shall  have  twenty  thousand  airplanes  ready  for 
active  work  in  Europe  by  the  summer  of  1918,' 
that  was  one  of  the  examples  of  bosh  given  out 
solely  to  hoodwink  the  public  into  believing  that 

293 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

mollycoddles  had  suddenly  become  fire-eating 
warriors.  *  We  shall  build  six  million  tons  of 
shipping  in  the  same  time.'  Bosh!  I  took  the 
trouble  here  in  the  hotel  the  other  day  to  look 
through  one  copy  of  the  press-agent  organ  known 
as  the  '  Official  Bulletin,'  which,  theoretically,  the 
Government  has  a  right  to  print  solely  that  the 
public  might  have  some  idea  of  what  really  is 
being  done  by  the  Government  in  the  conduct  of 
the  war.  And  I  found  that  in  the  '  Official  Bulle- 
tin '  account  of  the  Secretary  of  War's  testimony 
before  the  Senate  military  affairs  investigation 
of  the  day  before  they  had  cut  out  every  line 
spoken  by  witnesses  whose  official  testimony  in- 
dicated that  they  did  not  subscribe  to  the  Mutual 
Admiration  Society's  press-agent  propaganda. 
Anybody  with  common  sense  knows  that  we  shall 
be  lucky,  at  the  present  rate,  if  we  have  twenty 
airplanes  by  summer  instead  of  the  twenty  thou- 
sand promised  so  grandiloquently.  One  man 
who  never  joined  the  Mutual  Admiration  Society, 
but  does  know  all  about  our  airplanes,  for  the 
reason  he  is  one  of  the  big  bosses  actually  mak- 
ing them,  put  it  this  way  to  me  right  here  in 
Washington  only  a  few  days  ago: 
"  I  suppose  the  powers  round  here  will  accuse 
294 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

me  of  l  lending  aid  to  the  enemy  '  when  I  say  out 
loud  we  sha'n't  have  anything  like  a  small  frac- 
tion of  twenty  thousand  airplanes  ready ;  but  as 
Germany  knows  all  about  our  aircraft  shortcom- 
ings, I  can't  see  how  we  give  aid  to  Germany  by 
letting  our  own  people  get  an  inkling  of  a  condi- 
tion that  is  ancient  history  to  the  German  peo- 
ple.' 

"  And  when  it  comes  to  six  million  tons  of  ship- 
ping by  the  summer  of  1918,  bah  again!  To 
make  the  ships  we  have  n't  even  taken  the  first 
steps  toward  conserving  the  labor  that  is  to  build 
them.  We  play  with  wheatless  days  and  meat- 
less days,  and  not  a  genius  in  all  this  capital  ever 
stops  to  realize  that  a  product  more  important 
than  wheat  or  meat  or  anything  else,  the  most 
important  product  in  the  whole  conduct  of  the 
war  —  labor  —  is  still  altogether  unregulated, 
not  mobilized,  still  hopelessly  in  a  state  of 
scramble.  And  if  any  t  seditious '  person  does 
step  forward  to  suggest  that  we  at  least  try  to 
approach  what  Great  Britain  has  done  in 
mobilizing  labor,  instantly  the  small-town  poli- 
ticians who  call  themselves  '  leaders  of  the  peo- 
ple '  begin  to  think  first  of  the  dear  labor  vote 
next  election  day  and,  secondly,  of  the  war. 

295 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

Lord  Northcliffe  was  one  of  these  i  disloyal '  per- 
sons, too,  'lending  aid  to  the  enemy/  a  'paid 
agent  of  Germany/  and  all  that  sort  of  thing  in 
the  days  when  England  was  passing  through  the 
'  loyalty  '  spasm  which  is  now  epidemic  over  here 
or  epizoodic  over  here.  And  finally  England 
awoke  to  the  fact  that  Northcliffe's  contribution 
of  '  aid  to  the  enemy  '  was  to  take  the  supremacy 
of  the  air  away  from  Germany  and  kick  a  fat- 
headed  bureaucracy  generally  into  action.  And 
the  tirades  in  England  against  Northcliffe  had  n't 
died  down  before  England  had  suddenly  begun  to 
reward  him  by  making  him  the  supreme  head  of 
a  force  of  ten  thousand  specialists  working  night 
and  day  for  England  and  the  Allies  in  the  office 
buildings  and  on  the  plains  of  America." 

"Have  you  finished,  Mom?" 

"'No,  I  haven't  started.  But  that's  all  I'm 
going  to  say  to-day.  I  'm  going  to  put  on  my 
hat,  and  you  're  going  to  put  on  yours,  and  we  're 
going  to  take  a  run  down  to  Mount  Vernon  this 
afternoon.  And  to-night  we  're  going  to  pack 
up  and  we  're  going  back  home  to  New  York, 
where  I  shall  continue  to  be  '  disloyal '  from  the 
Mutual  Admiration  Society's  point  of  view,  even 
at  the  risk  of  costing  the  dear  old  Democracy,  or 

296 


THE  MUTUAL  ADMIRATION  CLUB 

Republicanism,  as  the  case  may  be,  a  couple  of 
votes.  Come,  let  '&  get  out  of  this  before  some- 
body hears  me  and  interns  me  with  the  other  dan- 
gerous enemies  of  the  Mutual  Admiration  So- 
ciety." 

I  was  glad  the  wife  had  decided  upon  that  re- 
freshing motor-trip  down  among  the  withered 
Virginia  fields  of  winter.  The  bracing  winter 
air  and,  above  all,  the  gentle  peace  and  quie- 
tude in  and  round  the  lovely  old  colonial  man- 
sion that  once  had  been  General  Washington's 
was  a  tonic  that  would  go  far  toward  relieving 
her  of  whatever  it  was  that  was  the  matter  with 
her.  And  so  we  strolled  about  the  Mount  Ver- 
non  rooms,  and  talked  with  the  dignified  old 
gardener  in  the  greenhouse  on  the  estate,  and 
entered  upon  a  learned  discussion  with  an  aged 
darky  on  the  grounds  about  the  more  or  less  evi- 
dent good  points  of  his  hound-ketchin'  dawg. 

"  Why  let  yourself  get  all  flustered,  old  girl," 
I  said  as  we  strolled  back  toward  the  waiting 
car  to  return  to  Washington,  "  about  what  is  or  is 
not  being  done  in  the  war?  What  good  does  it 
do?  You  and  I  can  be  as  peaceful,  at  least  in 
our  own  hearts,  as  the  peace  and  quiet  we've 
found  here  to-day  on  this  spot,  which  is  the  heart 

297 


THE  WAR-WHIRL  IN  WASHINGTON 

of  all  America.  Is  there  any  suggestion  of  war 
worry  here  at  Mount  Vernon?  Can  you,  by  any 
wildest  stretch  of  imagination,  fancy  even  one 
hint  of  all  this  world  worry  penetrating  into  the 
calmness  of  this  old  estate,  even  when  — " 

Boom!  The  roar  of  a  great  gun  came  from  the 
testing-grounds  far  down  the  river  at  Indian 
Head.  The  chattering  sparrows  on  the  leafless 
trees  listened  with  heads  cocked  to  one  side. 
Bang!  Bonk!  Boom!  Boom!  Up  the  ice- 
locked  Potomac  came  the  roar  of  salvos  of  great 
guns,  the  echoes  rolling  back  in  softer  thunders 
from  the  Maryland  and  Virginia  hills. 

"  No,"  said  the  wife,  softly,  as  the  roar  of  the 
big  guns  throbbed  on  and  on.  "  There  is  n't  any 
place  in  all  this  world  where  even  the  selfish  can 
'  forget ' —  not  until  we  have  finished  it  all  for- 
ever. Come  on.  Let 's  go  home." 


THE   END 


298 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 
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